DSST Lifespan Developmental Psychology study guide
DSST Lifespan Developmental Psychology · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The DSST Lifespan Developmental Psychology exam is a credit-by-examination test in the Social Sciences category, offered at the upper baccalaureate level. A passing score is recognized by participating colleges and universities, which may award three semester hours of college credit for knowledge equivalent to what students learn in a comparable course. The DSST Lifespan Developmental Psychology study guide has 10 sections and about 4,869 words.
01Ethical Issues in Lifespan Developmental Research and Practice
This domain tests whether you can apply research-ethics rules to developmental populations - children, fetuses, pregnant women, and adults with cognitive impairment - and whether you can spot when a study design itself creates a moral problem. Belmont Report (1979) : respect for persons (autonomy plus protection of those with diminished autonomy), beneficence (maximize benefit, minimize harm), justice (fair distribution of research burdens and benefits).
513 words, about 3 min02Biological Development: Prenatal, Neural, Pubertal, and Aging Processes
Biological development questions ask you to map physical change across the lifespan onto underlying mechanisms - genes, brain growth, hormones - and to know when the organism is most vulnerable to disruption. Germinal/zygotic (conception–week 2): cleavage, blastocyst, implantation.
500 words, about 3 min03Perceptual Development Across the Lifespan
Perception items test how infants and older adults detect, interpret, and act on sensory information - and, critically, the methods used to infer what a nonverbal infant perceives. Habituation/dishabituation : looking time declines with repetition; renewed looking to a changed stimulus shows discrimination.
489 words, about 2 min04Learning and Memory: Conditioning, Infant Memory, Strategies, and Aging
This domain covers how organisms acquire associations, how memory is measured in preverbal infants, how memory strategies develop, and which memory systems decline in late adulthood. Classical : Pavlov's dogs; Watson and Rayner's Little Albert (white rat paired with a loud noise produced fear that generalized to a rabbit and a fur coat - also a classic ethics case).
495 words, about 2 min05Cognitive and Language Development: Piaget, Vygotsky, Language, and Intelligence
Cognition and language items test stage theories, the mechanisms that drive change, and the milestones and theories of language acquisition. Sensorimotor (0–2) : object permanence consolidates around 8–12 months.
472 words, about 2 min06Social, Emotional, and Personality Development
This domain tests temperament, attachment, psychosocial stage theory, identity, emotional milestones, and adult personality stability and change. Thomas & Chess : easy (~40%), difficult (~10%), slow-to-warm-up (~15%); outcomes depend on goodness of fit with the caregiving environment.
463 words, about 2 min07Social Behaviors: Moral Development, Aggression, Peers, and Gender
Social behavior items test how children reason morally, why they help or harm, how peer status is measured, and how gender identity and sex-typed behavior develop. Piaget : heteronomous morality (rules fixed, judged by consequences) gives way to autonomous morality (~10–11), where intentions matter.
493 words, about 2 min08Family Life Cycle: Stages, Parenting Styles, and Family Structure
Family life cycle items test stage-model vocabulary, the tasks attached to each transition, and how parenting style and family structure relate to child outcomes. Carter & McGoldrick's six stages , each with tasks requiring second-order family change: (1) leaving home as a single young adult, (2) joining families through marriage - the new couple, (3) families with young children, (4) families with adolescents, (5) launching children and moving on, (6) families in later life.
517 words, about 3 min09Adjustment to Life Stresses: Models, Coping, and Resilience
Adjustment items test stress and coping models, what makes transitions easy or hard, and the evidence on resilience across development. Selye's general adaptation syndrome : alarm → resistance → exhaustion.
441 words, about 2 min10Bereavement and Loss: Models, Variations, and Children's Understanding
Bereavement items test grief models, the distinction between normal and complicated trajectories, children's developing concepts of death, and cultural variation. Kübler-Ross : denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance - described dying patients, not the bereaved, and empirically is not a sequence people move through.
486 words, about 2 min