Franklin C. Cacciutto
A. Definition of Developmental Tasks
The tasks which the individual must learn—the developmental tasks of life—are those things which constitute healthy and satisfactory growth in our society. They are the things a person must learn if he is to be judged and to judge himself a reasonably happy and successful person. A developmental task is a task which arises at or about a certain period in the life of the individual, successful achievement of which leads to his happiness and to success with later tasks, while failure leads to unhappiness in the individual, disapproval by the society, and difficulty with later tasks.
B. The Origin of Developmental Tasks
As the individual grows he finds himself possessed of new physical and psychological resources. The infant’s legs grow larger and stronger, enabling him to walk. The child’s nervous system grows more complex, enabling him to reason more subtly and to understand the complexities of subjects such as arithmetic. The individual also finds himself facing new demands and expectations from the society around him. The infant is expected to learn to talk, the child to learn to subtract and divide.
These inner and outer forces contrive to set for the individual a series of developmental tasks which must be mastered if he is to be a successful human being.
Some tasks arise mainly from physical maturation, such as learning to walk, learning to behave acceptably to the opposite sex in adolescence, and (for women) adjusting to the menopause in middle life. Other tasks, arising primarily from the cultural pressure of society, are learning to learning to participate as a socially responsible citizen in society.
There is a third source of developmental tasks—namely, the personal values and aspirations of the individual, which are part of his personality or self. The personality, or self, emerges from the interaction of organic and environmental forces. As the self evolves, it becomes increasingly a force in its own right in the subsequent development of the individual. Already by the age of three or four the individual’s self is effective in the defining and accomplishing of his developmental tasks.
Examples of the tasks arising primarily from the personal motives and values of the individual are: choosing and preparing for an occupation, and achieving a scale of values and a philosophy of life.
Thus developmental tasks may arise from physical maturation, from the pressure of cultural processes upon the individual, and from the desires, aspirations, and values of the emerging personality, and they arise in most cases from combinations of these factors acting together.
C. The Teachable Moment
There are two reasons why the concept of developmental tasks is useful to educators. First, it helps in discovering and stating the purposes of education in the school. Education may be conceived as the effort of the society, through the school, to help the individual achieve certain of his developmental tasks.
The second use of the concept is in the timing of educational efforts. When the body is ripe, the society requires, and the self is ready to achieve a certain task, the
teachable moment
has come. Efforts at teaching which would have been largely wasted if they had come earlier, give gratifying results when they come at the teachable moment, when the task should be learned. For example, the best times to teach reading, the care of children, and adjustment to retirement from one’s job can be discovered by studying human development, and finding out when conditions are most favorable for learning these tasks.
Developmental Tasks of Early Childhood
Learning to take solid foods.
Learning to walk.
Learning to talk.
Learning to control the elimination of body wastes.
Learning sexual modesty.
Forming simple concepts of the physical world.
Learning to distinguish right from wrong.
Learning appropriate social behavior with siblings and parents.
Developmental Tasks of Middle Childhood
Learning to care for one’s person—to dress one’s self, keep clean, etc. Developing physical skills as used in games.
Learning a sex role.
Learning to get along with age-mates.
Learning fundamental intellectual skills necessary for everyday life—the three R’s.
Developing concepts necessary for everyday life.
Developing conscience and a scale of values.
Developing attitudes toward social groups and institutions—race, religion, school, government, nation, etc.
Learning to control emotions.
Learning wholesome attitudes toward one’s self as a physical organism.
Developmental Tasks for Adolescence
Accepting one’s physique, and accepting a masculine or feminine role.
Achieving new relations with age-mates of both sexes.
Achieving emotional independence of parents and other adults.
Achieving assurance of economic independence.
Selecting and preparing an occupation.
Developing intellectual skills and concepts necessary for civic competence. Desiring and achieving socially responsible behavior.
Preparing for marriage and family life.
Building conscious values (esthetic, religious, ethical) in harmony with an adequate scientific world-picture.
Developmental Tasks of Early Adulthood
Establishing one’s self in an occupation
Courtship and marriage.
Establishing a home and family.
Developing knowledge and critical abilities necessary for civic competence. Assuming social responsibility as an adult in religious, political, civic,
and recreational affairs.
