Talk:Developmental systems theory

Human developmental systems theory
The abstract of the book Developmental Systems Theory: An Integrative Approach by Richard Martin Lerner and Donald Herbert Ford, Sage Publications 1992 ISBN 0803946619 mentions:


 * For decades there hasn't been an integrative theory of development, only theories about various developmental domains such as language acquisition, personality, and peer relations. Two leading developmentalists, Donald Ford and Richard Lerner, present the first integrative theory on human development. Through a synthesis of developmental contextualism and the Living Systems Framework, the authors develop a theory that examines how a person carries out transactions with their environment and through that transaction how their biological, psychological, behavioral, and environmental elements change or remain constant. They also offer important implications of Developmental Systems Theory (DST) for research, implications for use in educational and clinical settings, and the usefulness of DST in the formulation of social policy. By integrating the results from many research investigations into a larger framework, Developmental Systems Theory offers researchers, professionals, and students a better understanding of how multiple elements interact and shape a person's life... Source:, see also:

Ford and lerner developed the first integrative theory on human development, and called it ... developmental systems theory.

I think that the original auteur of the page user:Rj.robinson, who created this artilce on 9 December 2006 had only the biological developmental systems theory in mind. This is way I added the biology in the opening sentence. Some kind of action still have to be taken to integrate the human developmental systems theory in this article - Mdd 23:49, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I found some more quotes:


 * Developmental contextualism (Lerner, 1986, 1991, 1995, 1998) is an instance of a theoretical orientation to human development termed "developmental systems theory" (Ford & Lerner, 1992; Sameroff, 1983; Thelen & Smith, 1998). Developmental contextualism has its roots in the multidisciplinary and multiprofessional field of home economics (Lerner & Miller, 1993; Miller & Lerner, 1994), a field now labeled family and consumer sciences. In addition, developmental systems theory, generally, and developmental contextualism, more specifically, have emerged within the current study of human development as representing important, and arguably the key theoretical orientations within the field because of their "co-evolution" with the life-span view of human development (Baltes, 1987; Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 1998), the life-course study of human development (Elder, 1974, 1980; Elder & Caspi, 1988), and the ecological view of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998). Source: Richard Lerner (1998))


 * List of recent literature about Developmental Systems Theory related to general psychology.

It becomes clearer to me that Developmental Systems Theory is developing both in biology and in psychology. - Mdd 13:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

History needed
This page appears to be about something very important and radical, yet diffuse in it's origins. Can anyone contribute a history section? Who came up with the name, and when? Who are the major supporters? Is this considered a legitimate subject of study, if so where? --Memestream 11:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * On you user page I read that you intent on clarifying evolutionary theory. If you are so interested in this field, can you not answer these questions yourselve? - Mdd 13:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Criticism?
I'd love to be able to read some content that critically evaluates this approach.

Philovitist (talk) 15:20, 10 May 2012 (UTC)