Developmental Patterns - PSYCHOLOGY NOTES - An early study in psychology took a very unusual look at the process ot development. A husband-and-wite team adopted a chimpanzee, a lovable seven-month-old temale. They decided to rear this chimp along with their other new (human) child to see what happened. Both were treated identically - or as identically as possible, taking their psysical differences into account. At first, this "experimen" looked like a disaster. In fact, the parents felt some panic for a while when the chimpanzee progressed faster than their son. For example, the chimp learned to feed herself, drink from a cup, and obey her parents" much carlier and faster than the boy did. By the time, both "Chidsen" had reached the age of two, however. the boy had overtaken and passed the chimpanzee in every aspect except phy- Sical strength and amounr of body hair (Kellogg& Kellogg (933). This dramaric study mares a point of major importance. Development within species (whether people, elephants, dogs, or some other species) Is orderly and specific. It has it own time table and pattern. The pattern is related to how complex the mature organism ultimately will be. At first, the boy living with the chimp developed slowly in comparison. later, though, he went beyond the chump's abilities, because human beings reach a higher level of intelligence and other skills than chimpanzees do. The human has the longest developmental perod of all creatures. The fact that developing humans are weak and neipless for so long is probably the reason we have an elaborate social structure ot closely knit families who can prorect and care for the helpless young ones (Bjorklund, 1997).