Developmental Communication

Abstract

In the last two decades of the twentieth century, communication scholars began to adopt a perspective that recognizes the dynamic and evolving nature of behavior. Termed “developmental” or “life‐span” communication, this approach mirrors its sister disciplines, psychology and sociology, in the study of change across time. Communication scholars became interested in this perspective after the 1979 National Communication Association, led by Carl Carmichael and Robert Hawkins, included a caucus on communication and aging (Nussbaum & Friedrich 2005). Just over 10 years later, notable scholars including Nikolas Coupland, Howard Giles, John Wiemann, Jon F. Nussbaum, and Mark Knapp responded to this surge of interest with a summer conference, a Fulbright International Colloquium, and numerous books that not only showcased a developmental approach to communication scholarship but illuminated the need to more fully appreciate change when examining communicative behavior (Nussbaum et al. 2002; Nussbaum & Friedrich 2005). To date, developmental communication research – with interdisciplinary studies in relationships, media effects, entertainment, education, and health – has produced invaluable knowledge on the individual, relational, and societal levels of how communicative behavior changes over time. Developmental communication has become an increasingly important part of the communication discipline.