In order to understand Child Psychology it is essential to investigated the history of research in developmental psychology and the practice of child therapy. Scholars from Western Europe and America have influenced the growth and changes in this field.

Child psychology began as the main focus of developmental psychology. Many scholars cite Charles Darwin and his landmark The Origin of the Species (1859) as the catalyst for developmental psychology. Developmental psychologists used Darwin's emphasis on individual differences and adaptation as the foundation for their own theories. These scholars, working in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, published theories that had profound influence on developmental psychology.

One devotee of Darwin, G. Stanley Hall, initiated the child study movement, which led to the growth of developmental psychology in the United States. Emerging in the latter half of the 19th century, this movement focused on child welfare. It helped influence child labor and compulsory education legislation. Hall's studies attempted to establish norms for child development. With his journal Pedagogical Seminary, published in 1891, and his landmark books Adolescence, published in 1904, and Senescence, published in 1922, Hall is considered "the father of American Developmental Psychology."

John Dewey expanded Hall's focus on child welfare by developing methods of instituting education for children. Dewey saw education as a way to establish the "agenda" of development and he created the laboratory school in order to observe children in this environment. His studies led him to explore both universal and cultural aspects of development, issues that psychologists still consider. Education remained an essential aspect of developmental psychology. In France, Alfred Binet advocated educational reform and started an experimental laboratory school as well. Binet's research on cognitive functioning and memory, led him to expand the uses of education. Binet initiated the testing movement as a means of measuring child development. He published scales in 1905, 1908 and 1911, each one increasingly more sophisticated. Lewis Terman, a student of Hall's, improved Binet's scales and the final result of his work became the Stanford-Binet measurement, which is still considered the standard intelligence measurement tool. These approaches to measurement attempted to establish norms of development against which all children would be evaluated.

John Watson proposed learning theory as a way to understand children's emotional development. Mary Cover Jones took this a step further by suggesting children's emotional development could be changed through behavior modification to produce desired results. B.F. Skinner's operant learning led to the most useful and widespread use of behavior modification, especially for developmentally disabled children.

Jean Piaget, in 1930, contributed a chapter to the first Handbook of Child Psychology. He offered a theory of developmental stages that was useful for both educators and later practicing psychologists. Thus, Piaget offered a theory that applied to the two emerging specializations of developmental psychology: developmental psychology research and psychoanalysis. While scholars still studied developmental psychology and concentrated on children, Child Psychology made its most profound distinctions, as a discipline, in the new approaches psychologists used in psychoanalysis with children.

Sigmund Freud developed psychoanalysis in the late 1800s, yet his methods were only used in treating adults. In the 1920s, Anna Freud modified her father's techniques in order to address the specific needs of troubled children. Understanding the challenges posed by children who could not express their feelings as effectively as adults, Freud and Melanie Klein used play rather than talk therapy. This technique enabled psychologists to obtain emotional and unconscious expression from children and, in the process, observe their thoughts and feelings. Erik Erikson extended the psychoanalytic approach to children with his book Childhood and Society. In this seminal work, published in 1950, Erickson identified the eight stages of development. These stages show a great deal of influence from the elder Freud, but like his daughter, Erickson was also interested in children's play. He saw this as a useful way to observe child development.

In England, during the 1950s, Lydia Jackson and Kathleen Todd were focusing on children's play as a psychoanalytic tool as well. They promoted their "play therapy," as a effective means for diagnosis and treatment of children. Thus, the practice of child psychology was gaining its own methods that related to the different needs of its clients. This type of child therapy has become more accepted since the 1950s. In all of their therapeutic approaches, psychologists focus on developing a trusting relationship with the child and concentrating more on current emotions and feelings than past experiences.

Today, psychologists approach child development and child therapy with a variety of methods. Contemporary concerns as well as the financial constraints of managed care have created a new emphasis on family therapy, crisis intervention and short-term therapy focusing on specific problems. Starting in the late 1980s, many psychologists utilized a cultural approach when researching child development or counseling children. This approach is built upon the premise that specific economic, social and cultural pressures dramatically influence the development and behavior of children. Psychologists now assert that child development is "culturally constructed." With this theory, psychologists move away from the emphasis on standards of development as expressed by Piaget, Erickson and Binet, and toward a more inclusive conception of childhood.

Hogan, James D. "Developmental Psychology: History of the Field." In Encyclopedia of Psychology. Edited by Alan E. Kazdin. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 9-13.

"Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy." In Encyclopedia of Psychology. Edited by Alan E. Kazdin. New York: Oxford University press, 2000, 65-68.

Haworth, Mary R. A Child's Therapy: Hour by Hour. Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press, Inc., 1990, 1-9.

Woodhead, Margaret. "Reconstructing Developmental Psychology- Some First
Steps." Children & Society, Vol. 13, 1999, 3-19.