Subtest III: Human Development - Cognitive, Physical, Social, and Emotional Development
Subtest III Human Development asks you to match developmental theory to observed behavior and to choose instruction that fits a child's stage. Expect scenarios describing a student and four plausible theoretical explanations.
Cognitive development
- Piaget: sensorimotor (0–2, object permanence), preoperational (2–7, symbolic play, egocentrism, failure to conserve), concrete operational (7–11, conservation, classification, seriation, reversibility), formal operational (11+, hypothetical and abstract reasoning).
- Vygotsky: learning is social; the zone of proximal development is the gap between independent and assisted performance; scaffolds are temporary supports withdrawn as competence grows.
- Language: cooing and babbling, first words, holophrastic speech, telegraphic speech, then grammar overgeneralization (goed, mouses) - evidence that children apply rules rather than imitate.
Psychosocial and moral development
- Erikson: trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. role confusion (adolescence), intimacy, generativity, integrity.
- Kohlberg: preconventional (punishment, self-interest), conventional (approval, law and order), postconventional (social contract, universal principles).
- Bronfenbrenner: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem. Ainsworth attachment patterns: secure, avoidant, ambivalent, disorganized. Parenting styles: authoritative (high warmth, high expectations) consistently predicts the best outcomes.
Worked example. A five-year-old watches water poured from a short wide glass into a tall narrow one and insists the tall glass now holds more. Reasoning: she centers on one perceptual dimension (height) and ignores width, so she has not yet acquired conservation - a hallmark of the preoperational stage. A concrete-operational child of about eight would say the amount is unchanged because nothing was added or removed. The instructional implication is hands-on pouring and comparison, not a lecture on volume.
Traps. Calling egocentrism selfishness; labeling a preoperational child developmentally delayed for failing conservation; placing identity vs. role confusion in middle childhood; treating conventional morality as postconventional; claiming a stage theorist says development is entirely determined by environment.