The emergence of life span developmental psychology - approaches, theories, models, methods, implementation

The synoptic overview follows two lines of the core topic: life span development and the strategy of its research. The actual task is to design a life span development theory leading to the recognition and specification of individual development dynamics together with allocation of resources for growth, resilience and coping with losses. Ongoing empirical research point out how this general concept is tested in specific areas, such as cognitive processes, motor activity and emotionality. Is lifespan developmental psychology a special kind of developmental psychology, a general integrative ontogenetic concept, or is, is just one of the orientations in the current research of development? Arguments in current discussions are hinted. One of the main pretensions of life span development theory is to allocate a profile of biology- and culture-based sources of growth, resilience and coping with losses. Pluralism appears to be a general characteristic for changes of postmodernism in the concepts of diversity. The number of papers dealing with both positive and risk factors in the lifespan development context is increasing.