Lifespan Development Psychology:

DANTES Final Exam Outline 

Each topic will be covered in class. 

 

 

The Study of Lifespan Development (11% - 13%)

 

• Models and theories: Lifespan Approach is the study of behaviors, dispositions, skills and traits over substantial period of the life span.

• Methods of studies: Research design, data collection methods, measurement issues, and drawing samples are all considerations.

• Ethical issues: The Society for Research in Child Development and the American Psychological Association created ethical guidelines for researchers.

 

Biological Development (17% - 19%)

 

• Genetic factors (including counseling): Genetics represents one of nature’s key control mechanisms for directing the kinds and amounts of cells needed for effective adaptation.

• Prenatal Development and Birth: Whatever the mother eats, drinks, sniffs, or inhales is passed on to the developing fetus.

• Physical Development (nutrition, health): Diet during this period of rapid brain growth is important and takes a substantial amount of high-quality protein to sustain a rate of growth of 1.7 grams per day.

• Motor Development: As the brain develops, motor development follows through myelinization.

• Sexual Development: Children are curious about their own bodies and may quickly discover that touching certain body parts feel nice.

• Neurological Development: At birth, neurons and synapses are formed. As the neurons mature, more synapses are made.

• Sensory Development: Experiences evoke consistent auditory, visual and kinesthetic responses, stimulate cortical and brain stem electrical activity and fine-tune brain circuitry.

• Aging Process: Aging means physical decline, some of which may be a result of lifestyle (poor diet and lack of exercise) and illness.

• Dying and Death: The process people experience and how they come to terms with it.

 

Perception. Learning, and Memory (14% - 16%)

 

• Perceptual Development: Sensory Stimuli is the medium that babies learn about the world and its operation.

• Learning, Conditioning, and Modeling: Learning is a change in behavior or in potential behavior that occurs as a result of experience and continuous reinforcement.

• Memory Development: The retention of information over a period of time.

• Defining Executive Functioning: Skills developed to organize and act on information.

• Attention and information processing: This process enables the brain to attend to, and process information.

 

Cognition and Language (19% - 21%)

 

• Cognitive-developmental theory: Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development is characterized by 4 stages.

• Problem solving: The active attempt that individuals make to achieve goals that cannot be easily attained.

• Mental abilities: A person’s intelligence.

• Intelligence and Intelligence Testing: The ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt to environment and to learn from experience

• Language Development and Theories: Theorist B.F. Skinner proposed that the emergence of language is the result of imitation and reinforcement.

• Social Cognition: Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory is base on three core concepts.

 

Social, Emotional, and Personality Development (34% - 36%)

 

• Personality Development: Development task and life stage theories, attachment and emotional development, gender role development, and stability and change in personality.

• Social behaviors: Peer relationships, aggressive behavior, pro-social behavior, moral development, and sexual attitudes and behavior.

• Family Life Cycle: Courtship and marriage, parenting, siblings, abuse, etc.

• Extra-familial settings (e.g., day-care, school, nursing home, hospice, college): Quality and extent of childcare is dependent on how long a child spends at a facility.

• Singlehood, Cohabitation, and Marriage: Living alone and the adjustment made to live with another person.

• Occupational Development and Retirement: Stages and phases one goes through finding a career path leading to the eventual stage of retirement.

• Adjustment and life stresses: Stress is the internal or external force that causes a person to become tense, upset or anxious.

• Bereavement and loss: Coping with the loss of a loved one.