Late Adulthood Stage: A Case Study of Grandma Ollie, Lecture notes of Developmental Psychology

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The Late Adulthood Stage Caya Norfleet Guilford Technical Community College PSY 241 Developmental Psychology Ms. Knight, MSW November 27, 2022

An adult that is in my family that is in the “late adulthood” stage would be my great grandma, Grandma Ollie. My great grandma is well into the later stages of her adulthood, she is close to being 90 years old. Since she is an older adult she has gone through many of the stages in her life already, physically and socially. Throughout a person’s life their personality can be stable throughout adulthood or vary in different ways (Feldman, 2019). I think my great grandma has remained the same as far as her personality, she is very funny but also stern, very honest and straightforward. The stage that better represents my great grandma in late adulthood is Erikson’s approach of the body transcendence versus body preoccupation (Feldman, 2019). Grandma Ollie is in the stage of her life where she is unable to work anymore because of her health issues, she has physically changed a lot considering now she has to sometimes walk with a walker, this takes some adjustment as well as comes with aging and being able to cope with it. Grandma Ollie has aged and is still aging successfully, she is not married, lives alone in her own little apartment and her children come to visit and help her grocery shop when needed, she is well cared for. Lifespan development focuses on human development, developmentalists study to understand the unique aspects of individuals such as looking at traits and characteristics that differ from one person to another (Feldman, 2019). Also developmentalists focus on people’s growth and change during their lifespan from birth to death, these aspects are important in studying because it shows how every period of your life has potential growth or decline in your abilities as an individual as well as maintaining the capacity for substantial growth (Feldman, 2019).