ABSTRACT
It is important to understand as much as we can about how our brains and bodies function and what might go wrong, but this approach can only provide part of the total picture because we are not standard perfect machines that acquire faults. We are complex and individually unique organisms that develop in a natural and social environment. Increasingly, the picture of ourselves as developing and changing as we grow and age is being seen as the key to human psychology. The core principle of a developmental perspective is that any particular observation about an individual, e.g. this child is poor at copying or drawing crosses and angles, needs instantly to be related to the child’s current developmental goals.
A developmental goal is the level of performance which the majority of children is expected to be able to achieve at a given age in any area of functioning.
