Child Development and Family Studies: Milestones, Theories and Family Functions
This domain covers developmental domains and milestones, prenatal influences, major theories, attachment, and family types and functions. UPMSP questions often present a child's behaviour and ask for the stage, the theorist, or an appropriate response.
Core concepts
- Domains: physical, cognitive, language, social-emotional. Prenatal risk factors include teratogens, maternal malnutrition, infection, alcohol and smoking.
- Piaget: sensorimotor (0–2, object permanence); preoperational (2–7, egocentrism, animism, centration, no conservation); concrete operational (7–11, conservation, classification, seriation); formal operational (11+, abstract and hypothetical reasoning).
- Kohlberg: preconventional, conventional, postconventional moral reasoning.
- Erikson: trust vs mistrust; autonomy vs shame; initiative vs guilt; industry vs inferiority; identity vs role confusion.
- Attachment (Bowlby, Ainsworth): secure, avoidant, ambivalent and disorganised patterns.
- Family types: nuclear, joint, extended, single-parent. Functions: reproduction, economic, socialisation, emotional support, protection and care of dependants. The family life cycle moves through formation, expansion, stabilisation, contracting and ageing.
Worked example
A 4-year-old insists that a taller narrow glass contains more water than a short wide glass holding the same volume. Reasoning: the child centres on height and has not acquired conservation, which is typical of the preoperational stage. The response is not to drill subtraction but to offer concrete pouring and comparison play. Calling the child 'stubborn' misreads centration as a personality fault.
Traps
Confusing Piaget with Vygotsky's zone of proximal development; treating egocentrism as selfishness; assuming all adolescents experience universal storm and stress; reducing family functions to economic support; naming a stage without giving the matching behaviour.
Exam focus
Stage–behaviour matching, theorist identification, family-function analysis and age-appropriate guidance.