Human Development and Family Studies
Core concepts
This domain tests development across the lifespan and the family as a system. Know the major theorists and what each one actually claims: Piaget (cognitive stages, assimilation/accommodation, object permanence), Erikson (psychosocial crises across eight stages), Kohlberg (moral reasoning levels), Bowlby and Ainsworth (attachment, the Strange Situation, secure/avoidant/ambivalent/disorganized patterns), Bronfenbrenner (ecological systems: micro, meso, exo, macro, chrono), and Vygotsky (zone of proximal development, scaffolding). Family science concepts include family life cycle stages, genograms, cohesion and adaptability (Circumplex Model), boundaries, roles, and communication patterns.
Traps
Questions love to pair a theorist with the wrong construct-Erikson with stages of cognitive development, Piaget with psychosocial crises. Watch for age-band mismatches (object permanence is infancy, conservation is early childhood, formal operational thought is adolescence). Another trap: confusing normative age-graded events with nonnormative ones, or describing a family as "dysfunctional" when the stem only shows a normative transition such as launching a young adult.
Worked example
A stem describes a 7-year-old who insists a tall thin glass holds more juice than a short wide one. Rule of thumb: if the child is fooled by appearance and cannot conserve, the reasoning is preoperational (roughly ages 2–7). If the child solves conservation but cannot reason abstractly, that is concrete operational (7–11). Match the behavior to the stage, not to the child's exact age.
Rule of thumb
Identify the construct first, then the theorist, then the age band-in that order.