Ecological Influences on Development

As a young clinician, I worked with many children with disabilities in their homes.  Home-based services provided a rich setting for addressing the needs of the child.  One day, I was driving between client visits and listening to an audio lecture given by Dr. Ken Moses.  Dr. Moses is a psychologist who specializes in working with families that have a child with a disability.  My take away message from the lecture was the idea that you’re never working with just the child.  You are working with who that child is as part of a complex family system.  It was a simple message, but one that changed my focus as a clinician and shaped my future research.

My interest in exploring context and culture later led me to the work of Urie Bronfenbrenner.  Bronfenbrenner developed the Ecological Model of Development as a means to examine the multiple systems that influence an individual’s development.  The family is part of the most immediate system that influences the developing child, but that family is further influenced by larger contexts such as community, the parent(s)’ social networks, changes in the family over time, and larger influences of society.  Bronfenbrenner’s work speaks to the idea that all people grow and develop within the influence of many systems and many layers of culture. 

The systems that the family is connected with influence the child.  Is the family connected with a faith community?  The child will be impacted when parents deal with stressors in the work place or unemployment.  As families go through transitions such as divorce, moving or new family members, the child is impacted.  The many layers of influence shape our thinking and responses to new experience.  It is the cultural learning that teachers us how to interact with our current context. 

We are never working with just the child.  We are always working with who that individual is as shaped by her/ his past and current cultural context. 

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental Psychology. 22. 724-742.