ABSTRACT
This chapter explores lifespan development and psycho-social frameworks for understanding the predicable phases of adulthood. It focuses on five phases of adulthood: emerging adulthood, young adulthood, mid-adulthood, third-age adulthood and fourth-age adulthood. When working with children, music teachers tailor instruction to meet each child's preferred learning mode, learning style and developmental stage. When working with adults, developmental or life stage theories are useful, both for understanding the amount of time and effort that an adult might be able to commit to playing and for accommodating personal, physical and cognitive changes that occur throughout adulthood. Maintaining an awareness of typical attributes and stressors of adults at each phase of the lifespan can help music facilitators to co-create reasonable goals and weekly expectations for music study with the student. Educators who use developmental theories or assumptions of andragogy as frameworks for working with adults caution that adults learn from all of their life and educational experiences.
