STUDY GUIDE 2026/2027
Qualitative Change - ANS ✔✔A developmental change involving a fundamental transformation
in an ability or a characteristic
Quantitative Change - ANS ✔✔A developmental change involving an increase in the amount of
an existing ability or characteristic
continuous development - ANS ✔✔-Changes are small and gradual
-Difficult to notice change
discontinuous development - ANS ✔✔-Changes are made in steps and stages
-Easy to notice change
normative development - ANS ✔✔General changes that virtually all children share as they grow
older
individual development - ANS ✔✔-Individual variations around the normative course of
development
-Continuity within a child's developmental pathway
Piaget - ANS ✔✔-stage theory-qualitative change
-Normative cognitive development from birth to 12 years
-Children are active learners (not passive)
-logical reasoning
, Piaget's stages - ANS ✔✔•sensorimotor (0-2) Infants understand the world through sensory
information and motor responses
•Preoperational Period (2-7 years): Children use mental representation to reason about the
world, but thinking is not yet logical
•Concrete Operational (7-11 years): Children can perform logical operations on concrete objects
•Formal Operational (12+ years): Children can think logically about abstract issues and
hypothetical situations
Vygotsky - ANS ✔✔-Study impact of social and cultural processes on qualitative cognitive skill
development
-Children regulate behavior by internalizing messages obtained through interactions
-Zone of proximal development (ZPD):
Gap between a child's current performance and their potential with guidance
-changes are dramatic, qualitative
Freud - ANS ✔✔•Abnormal behavior results from inadequate expression of innate drives
•Mind consists of id (primitive drives & instincts), ego (the self), and superego (conscience)
•Personality development from fixation at a psychosexual stage
Freud and Erikson stages - ANS ✔✔•Oral (0-1 years): trust vs. mistrust
•Anal (1-3): autonomy vs. shame/doubt
•Phallic (3-6): initiative vs. guilt
•Latency (7-11): industry vs. inferiority
•Genital (12-18): identity vs. role confusion
Bandura - ANS ✔✔-Children tend to repeat behaviors that result in rewards or help them to
avoid unpleasant consequences
-Change is gradual and cumulative