Introduction (100 words)
The growth and development of children and adolescents into adulthoods are characterized by a myriad of physical and behavioral changes. The transitional process plays a valuable role in helping adolescents shed childhood mentality and perspectives about life. Nonetheless, children exhibit diverse problem behaviors which have different implications on their developmental process. Some of the common behavioral problem s includes aggression, persistent disobedience, vandalism, and gang fighting among others. In most cases, children have more than one development problems which are either interdependent or independent of each other. The concept of developmental pathway describes the orderly development of externalizing and internalizing behaviors. The nature of such behaviors varies in propensity among individuals. Although developmental pathways describe the orderliness of behavioral progression, it provides a glimpse to the dynamism of children and adolescents progressive acquisition of serious behavioral problems.
Developmental Pathways
Developmental pathways describe the orderly development or evolution of a set of behavioral problems in children and adolescents. The concept helps researchers understand how internalizing and externalizing behaviors progresses during the developmental stages of children and adolescents. It mainly focuses on the dynamics of differences in the progression of children or adolescents to problem behaviors. The concept is also crucial in identifying shared pathways that facilitate the developmental of externalizing behaviors in most children and adolescents. In other words, concept provides researchers, psychologists, and sociologists with a platform for identifying the series of events that precede the occurrence of serious behaviors such as theft, homicide, and violence. The conceptualization of the concept demands the formulation of probabilistic and testable model that is compatible with multiple dimensions of externalizing and internalizing behaviors.
Types of Developmental Pathways
The Authority Conflict Pathway (100 words)
The rate of behavioral changes in children varies with age and social environment. The outcome of the cause and correlate study identified the authority conflict as one of the primary pathways for behavioral progression in children. The pathway is common in children below the age of 12 years. It is characterized by a series of stubborn behaviors which are succeeded by disobedience – defiance and noncompliance to law and authority and episodic aggressive behavior. Subsequently, their disobedience deteriorates authority avoidance which is marked by truancy, elopement, running away, and violation of curfew among others.
The Covert Pathway (100 words)
The covert pathway starts at the age of 10 years. Most children hardly reach to the apex of the covert behavioral developmental process. Children whose behavioral development falls within this category hardly exhibit any form violent behavior; their behaviors are mostly delinquent in nature. They start with minor developmental behaviors such frequent lies and regular shoplifting which then progresses to vandalism, defacement of buildings , and fire setting among other
forms of property damage. Such children later – at the age of 11 to 12 – acquire serious delinquent behaviors such as burglary and fraud.
The Overt Pathway (100 words)
Children who follow the overt pathway tend to be more aggressive than those in covert and authority conflict pathways. The pathway starts with minor aggressive behaviors including bossing and bullying. Such behaviors later become the risk factors for verbal and physical fights and gang activity. The behavior subsequently progresses to attack and rape and other forms violent crime.
Conclusion
Developmental pathways are critical in understanding the behavioral development of children and adolescents. The findings of causes and correlate studies categorize developmental pathways into authority conflict, covert, and overt pathways. The number of children following each of these pathways falls significantly in their final stages.