Development, learning and educational interpretation
What you must know
Development spans physical, cognitive, and social change. Know Piaget's stages: sensorimotor (object permanence), preoperational (egocentrism, lack of conservation), concrete operational (conservation, logical thought about concrete things), formal operational (abstract reasoning). Distinguish assimilation (fit new info into existing schema) from accommodation (change schema). Know attachment styles (secure, insecure-avoidant, insecure-anxious/ambivalent) and parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, neglectful); associations with outcomes depend on context and do not establish a universal causal best style. Understand Kohlberg's moral stages and Erikson's psychosocial stages at a recognition level.
Learning covers classical conditioning (Pavlov: neutral stimulus becomes conditioned stimulus; acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, discrimination) and operant conditioning (Skinner: reinforcement increases behavior, punishment decreases it; positive adds a stimulus, negative removes one). Know schedules of reinforcement (fixed/variable ratio and interval; variable ratio often shows strong resistance to extinction under the compared conditions). Include observational learning (Bandura) and cognitive maps/latent learning (Tolman).
Traps
Questions swap negative reinforcement (removing something unpleasant to increase behavior) with punishment (decreasing behavior). They confuse assimilation and accommodation. They mislabel variable ratio as interval. They confuse predictions of the classic model with proof that every child performs identically on every task.
Worked example
Suppose a parent's giving candy becomes more frequent because it stops an unpleasant whining sound. Removal of that sound negatively reinforces the parent's candy-giving. If whining becomes more frequent because candy is added, the child's whining is positively reinforced. Analyze whose behaviour increases and whether the consequence adds or removes a stimulus.
Rule of thumb
Reinforcement increases, punishment decreases; positive adds, negative removes.
Developmental interpretation and education
Stage theories organize important hypotheses about change, but do not prove that every child follows identical timing or performs the same way in every task. Compare maturation, experience, social interaction and cultural context. A longitudinal study follows participants over time; a cross-sectional study compares groups at one period and can confound age with cohort differences. Observational learning involves attention, retention, reproduction and motivation, not merely being near a model. Explain which behaviour is being observed and what outcome changes its future frequency. Educational applications should connect a theory to the learner's actual task, resources and needs. Do not infer a clinical condition or a fixed limit on a child's ability from one short classroom example. Plan support, observe its effects and revise the hypothesis when the evidence does not fit.