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Gross Motor Milestones – Exam-Ready Timeline

  • General Note: The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) prioritizes the order of milestone achievements rather than the specific ages at which they occur.

Milestones by Age

  1. 1–3 Months

    • Lift chin to chest in prone: Strengthening neck muscles and beginning head control.
    • Prop on forearms: Supports upper body while lying face down, facilitating exploration of the environment.
    • Roll to side: Initiates movement and begins developing motor skills.

  2. 4–6 Months

    • Sit with trunk and pelvic support: Ability to maintain an upright position with some assistance.
    • Roll front to back, then back to front: Indicative of improved coordination and strength.
    • Protective extension: Arms extend outward during falls, showing awareness of safety and body mechanics.

  3. 7–9 Months

    • Sit without support: Key developmental milestone indicating balance and trunk strength.
    • Pull to sit/kneel: Demonstrates increasing muscle strength and coordination.
    • Start creeping: Movement on hands and knees, marking the transition to more independent mobility.
    • Pull to stand: Beginning to stand with support, leading towards walking.

  4. 10–12 Months

    • Creeps well: Proficient crawling, allowing for exploration and mobility.
    • Cruises alongside furniture: Walking while holding onto surfaces for support.
    • Walks with 2 hands, then 1 hand, before independent steps: Transition into independent walking.

  5. 13–15 Months

    • Stand independently: Full self-reliance in standing.
    • Walk well: Demonstrating confidence and stability in walking.
    • Stoops to pick up a toy: Indicates coordination and bending abilities.
    • Crawl up stairs: Enhanced gross motor skills.
    • Walk while carrying a toy: Shows balance and coordination.

  6. 16–18 Months

    • Walk backward: Development of spatial awareness and coordination.
    • Walk up stairs holding hands: Further building on balancing skills.
    • Run: Initiating faster movement, further developing lower body strength.
    • Throw a ball: Beginning to develop throwing skills, indicating hand-eye coordination.

  7. 19–30 Months

    • Walk downstairs with hand: Development of balance and coordination.
    • Walk up & down stairs holding rail, two feet per step: Shows confidence and ability in stair navigation.
    • Kick ball: Indicates strength and coordination.
    • Throw ball overhand: Development of throwing technique and motor skills.
    • Jump from step: Demonstrates developing strength and balance.

  8. 31–36 Months

    • Opposite arm/leg coordination while walking: Demonstrates advanced balance and timing.
    • Balance on one foot for 3 seconds: Assessing stability and equilibrium.
    • Walk stairs alternating feet: Further coordination development.
    • Pedal tricycle: Development of leg strength and coordination.
    • Catch ball (stiff arms): Indicates refinement of motor control and hand-eye coordination.

  9. Age 4 (Milestones)

    • Hop 2–3 times: Shows balance and body control.
    • Balance 4–8 seconds on one foot: Enhancement of stability and coordination.
    • Throw ball 10 ft: Improvement in distance throwing ability.
    • Catch bounced ball: Understanding of timing and positioning.

  10. Age 5 (Milestones)

    • Walk downstairs alternating feet: Demonstrates advanced coordination.
    • Hop 15 times: Increased proficiency in hopping.
    • Balance for more than 8 seconds on one foot: Indicates strong core and leg muscles.
    • Heel-toe backward walk: Advanced balance skills.
    • Jump backward: Slightly complex gross motor skill.

Puberty & Adolescence – Key Insights

  • Adolescent Growth Spurt
    • Girls: Typically occurs between ages 10–11.
    • Boys: Typically happens between ages 12–13.
    • Peak velocity: Around two years after onset of growth spurt.
    • Total duration: Growth spurt typically lasts 3–4 years.

Effects of Early vs. Late Puberty (Highly Testable)

  • Boys

    • Early puberty:
    • Higher self-esteem.
    • Increased popularity.
    • Enhanced athletic performance.
    • More engaging in risky behaviors (e.g., alcohol, antisocial actions, earlier sexual activity).
    • Late puberty:
    • Lower self-esteem.
    • Less popularity.
    • Decreased academic performance.
    • Increased anxiety and depression.

  • Girls

    • Early puberty:
    • Lower self-esteem and reduced popularity.
    • Worse academic outcomes.
    • Higher likelihood of risky sexual behavior and substance use.
    • Increased risk of depression, anxiety, and eating disorders.
    • Possible disruptive behavior disorders.
    • Predictors of early puberty in girls include:
    • Maternal depression.
    • Absence of biological father.
    • Presence of stepfather or boyfriend in the home.
    • High family conflict.

  • Late puberty in girls: Research findings are varied, indicating mixed outcomes without clear positive or negative predictors.

Adolescent Substance Use – Predictive Factors

Risk Factors

  • Experiencing stressful life events.
  • Parental history of substance use.
  • Lack of a strong parent-child bond.
  • Engagement in deviant peer groups.
  • Presence of untreated depression or ADHD.
  • Approval of drug use attitudes.
  • Poor social skills and academic failure.

Protective Factors

  • Disapproval of substance use by parents.
  • Supportive parenting styles.
  • Effective monitoring by parents.
  • Academic success and positive peer relationships.
  • High self-control.
  • Active religious engagement.

Buffering factors (Important for Exams)

  • Religiosity: Acts as protection against stress leading to drug use.
  • Self-control: Helps manage impulses, reducing risk behaviors.
  • Parental support: Provides a safety net for adolescents amidst stress.

Why Adolescents Are Prone to Risk-Taking

  • Limbic System Involvement: Develops earlier; responsible for emotion and reward processing.
  • Prefrontal Cortex Development: Develops later, responsible for reasoning and inhibiting impulsive actions.
    • Outcome: Adolescents typically make decisions driven by emotion more than logic, resulting in higher rates of risk-taking, impulsivity, and substance use.
  • Impact of Early Substance Use: Prolonged exposure during developmental years may lead to long-term substance use disorders (SUD).

Adolescent Sleep Deprivation (Highly Relevant for EPPP)

Causes (The “Perfect Storm”)

  1. Biological factors:
    • Delayed melatonin release results in a natural inclination to sleep later.
  2. Societal factors:
    • Early school start times prevent adequate sleep.
  3. Psychosocial factors:
    • Desire for autonomy leads to self-regulation of bedtime.
    • Academic pressures contribute to longer awake periods.
    • Excessive screen time delays melatonin production.

Consequences

  • Increased prevalence of depression, anxiety, and substance use.
  • Reduced concentration and memory capabilities.
  • Physical symptoms, including headaches and stomachaches.

Sexual Orientation – Exam Essentials

  • Evidence for Biological Basis:
    • Twin Concordance: Monozygotic twins show higher concordance rates for sexual orientation compared to dizygotic twins.
    • Genetic Influence: Stronger in males.
    • Fraternal Birth Order Effect:
    • Observed pattern: More older brothers correlate with increased likelihood of a boy identifying as gay, associated with maternal immune hypothesis (maternal antibodies affecting fetal brain masculinization).

Sexual Fluidity

  • Definition: Refers to changes in attraction and behavior over time.
  • More prevalent in women.
  • Distinct from bisexuality; as fluidity is often transient and situational while bisexuality is typically stable.

Moral Development

Piaget’s Theory (3 Stages)

  1. Premoral Stage (0–5 years):

    • Characterized by indifference to rules and morality. Children do not grasp the concept of rules yet.

  2. Heteronomous Morality (5–10 years):

    • Belief that rules are dictated by authority figures.
    • Morality assessed through consequences rather than intentions.
    • Example: A child perceives breaking ten dishes accidentally as worse than breaking one dish on purpose, highlighting an emphasis on quantity of damage.

  3. Autonomous Morality (10+ years):

    • Understanding that rules can be changed through agreement and intentions matter more than consequences.
    • Example: They judge that breaking one dish on purpose is a worse offense than ten broken accidentally.
  • Critiques of Piaget’s Theory:
    • Underestimates young children's understanding of intentions.
    • Morality development does not cease in adolescence.

Kohlberg’s Moral Development (3 Levels, 6 Stages)

Level 1: Preconventional (Younger children)
  • Focus on self-interest and avoidance of punishment.
    1. Punishment & Obedience: Right actions are those that do not lead to punishment.
    2. Instrumental Hedonism: Right actions are those that serve personal interests or lead to rewards.
Level 2: Conventional (Most teens and many adults)
  • Morality centers around social norms and relationships.
    1. Good Boy/Good Girl: Seeking approval and being liked by peers.
    2. Law & Order: Morality focused on obeying laws and authority to maintain social order.
Level 3: Postconventional (Not everyone reaches this)

  • Principles beyond specific laws.

    1. Social Contract: Laws are meant to protect societal rights; unjust laws should be changed.
    2. Universal Ethical Principles: Decisions based on internal moral codes reflecting principles of justice and equality; exemplified by leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi.

  • Note: Kohlberg believed that relatively few individuals reach Stage 6.

Criticisms of Kohlberg**

  • 1. Underestimates children’s abilities: Young children grasp moral knowledge much earlier.
  • 2. Androcentric bias: Gilligan argued that men tend to focus more on justice while women prioritize care and responsibility; Kohlberg's model favors male reasoning.
  • 3. Cultural bias: Stages 5 & 6 echo values of Western individualistic cultures more profoundly than collectivist ones.
  • 4. Hypothetical vs. real-life decisions: The moral dilemmas posed don't always translate to real-life behavior.

Parents vs. Peers in Moral Development

  • Piaget & Kohlberg both emphasized that peer interaction, through negotiation and equality, fosters moral development better than dialogues dominated by authority figures.
  • However, Inductive Parenting—explaining why behaviors are hurtful—leads to the most favorable moral outcomes compared to power assertion or love withdrawal.

Cognitive Development – Overview (EPPP-Ready)

Piaget's Theory

  • Fundamental Ideas:
    • Children actively construct knowledge as they strive for equilibrium by adapting to new experiences.
    • Essential processes: Assimilation (fitting new information into existing schemas) and Accommodation (adjusting schemas to incorporate new information).

Piaget’s Four Stages (Critical for Exams)

  1. Sensorimotor Stage (0–2 years):

    • Focus on senses and motor activities, discovering object permanence and intentional actions.
    • Substages include:
      • Circular reactions: Repeating actions.
      • Object permanence: Develops between 8–12 months.
      • Deferred imitation: Happens earlier than Piaget proposed.

  2. Preoperational Stage (2–7 years):

    • Involves representational thought, yet shows limitations including egocentrism, centration, irreversibility, and lack of conservation.
    • Example: A child asserts that a taller glass contains more water due to centration and irreversibility; cannot understand conservation.

  3. Concrete Operational Stage (7–12 years):

    • Logical thinking about concrete concepts develops.
    • Skills include conservation, decentration, reversibility, classification, and seriation.
    • Horizontal decalage: Conservation ability develops gradually, in the order of number, length, liquid, mass, weight, and volume.

  4. Formal Operational Stage (12+ years):

    • Developing abilities in abstract thinking, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, and better problem-solving skills.
    • Additionally, adolescents experience phenomena such as an imaginary audience (feeling watched) and a personal fable (belief of invincibility).
    • Critiques of Piaget include insights about underestimating abilities of younger children, neglecting social influences, and recognizing that training can foster earlier cognitive development.

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

  • Development is fundamentally rooted in social interactions.
  • Key Terms:
    • Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD): Refers to what a child can achieve with guidance but not independently.
    • Scaffolding: Support strategies from adults, including prompting and modeling to facilitate learning.
    • Private Speech: Children verbally guide themselves through tasks; turns into inner speech by age 7; promotes problem-solving skills.

Information Processing Theories

  • Opposite of Piaget—continuous development emphasizing quantitative changes in cognitive processes (speed, attention, memory).
  • Neo-Piagetians incorporate both Piaget and information processing, suggesting stages persist but differences arise from maturation of working memory.

Theory of Mind (ToM)

  • Ability to recognize that others have beliefs, thoughts, and emotions independent of one’s own.
  • Develops from ages 3 to 5 and is assessed through false-belief tasks (e.g., Sally-Anne task).
  • Related insights to imaginary friends and role-playing experiences.

Eyewitness Testimony

  • Key exam points:
    • Children are more suggestible than adults.
    • The misinformation effect (Loftus) demonstrates how memory can be altered after exposure to incorrect information.
    • Suggestibility tends to decrease with age, though older children can yield more spontaneous false memories.
    • Children can provide accurate testimony if:
    • Questioned nonsuggestively, avoiding leading questions, and not exposed to misinformation.

Cognition in Adulthood

  1. Childhood Amnesia: Inability of adults to recall memories prior to age 3-4, potentially due to insufficient language and unstable self-concept.
  2. Reminiscence Bump: Older adults often recall more events from ages 15–25 due to identity formation and significant life experiences.
  3. Memory Declines With Age:
    • Memory Type-Effect of Age Graph:
      • Recent long-term memory shows the biggest decline.
      • Working memory displays the second largest decline.
      • Primary/short-term storage remains stable.
      • Remote long-term memory remains stable.
    • Declarative memory shows:
      • Episodic memory declines significantly.
      • Semantic memory remains stable or declines slightly.
    • Nondeclarative memory generally remains stable with mixed findings.
  4. Synchrony Effect: Peak cognitive performance varies by age: older adults tend to perform better in the mornings while younger adults peak in the afternoons/evenings.

Sex Differences in Abilities

  • Mathematics:
    • Calculation: Girls generally score higher.
    • Problem-solving: Boys generally excel.
  • Verbal Skills: Girls generally outperform boys.
  • Visual/Spatial Skills: Boys generally outperform girls.
  • Aggression:
    • Physical aggression: Higher in boys.
    • Relational aggression: Mixed findings; requires further study.
  • Self-esteem: Males typically report higher levels.
  • Developmental Vulnerability: Boys face more vulnerabilities from conception through childhood (e.g., ASD, ADHD, Learning Disabilities).

Attachment, Emotions, Aggression & Social Relationships: Key Concepts

What is Attachment?

  • Definition: A strong emotional bond formed with an important figure, typically caregivers, that provides feelings of pleasure and a source of comfort in distressing times.
Early Attachment Research

  1. Harlow & Zimmerman (1959): Research on contact comfort with baby monkeys revealed:

    • Preference for soft, cloth-covered mothers over wire mothers who provided food, demonstrating that nurture and comfort are crucial for attachment.

  2. Bowlby’s Ethological Theory (1969): Proposes attachment is biological and essential for survival.

    • Infants exhibit behaviors (sucking, crying, smiling, cooing) to elicit care.
    • Develops internal working models based on caregiver relationships, framing beliefs about self-worth and reliability of others.
    • Four Stages of Attachment:
    1. Preattachment (Birth to 6 weeks): Babies show no strong preference for any caregiver.
    2. Attachment-in-the-making (~6 weeks to 6/8 months): Preference for familiar caregivers starts to develop but without significant separation anxiety.
    3. Clear-cut attachment (6 to 24 months): There is clear attachment with separation anxiety; infants begin utilizing caregivers as secure bases.
    4. Formation of reciprocal relationships (18 to 24 months+): Babies develop a better understanding of caregiver's patterns and relationships turn more reciprocal with reduced separation anxiety.
Signs of Attachment Development
  • Timing for signs:
    • Social referencing (6-8 months)
    • Separation anxiety (starts at 6-8 months, peaks around 14-18)
    • Stranger anxiety (starts 8-10 months, declines by age 2)
Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
  • A structured observation of attachment styles in 1-2 year-olds.
    • Caregivers and strangers interact with children under standard conditions to evaluate attachment responses.
    • Attachment Styles:
    • Secure Attachment: Exploratory and seeking comfort when needed.
    • Insecure/Resistant (Ambivalent) Attachment: Clingy behavior and intense distress upon caregiver's departure with anger at their return.
    • Insecure/Avoidant Attachment: Indifference or avoidance of caregiver.
    • Disorganized Attachment: Confusing behaviors toward caregivers, possibly associated with adverse caregiving experiences.
Effects of Attachment on Behavioral and Academic Outcomes
  • Secure attachments result in:
    • Higher IQs.
    • Better academic achievement.
    • Enhanced educational engagement.

Adult Attachment Patterns

  • Adult Attachment Interview (AAI): Investigates adult reflections on childhood relationships.
  • Patterns of adult attachment can predict how their children will attach:
    1. Autonomous: Balanced, coherent reflections lead to securely attached children.
    2. Preoccupied: Emotionally entangled views suggest children may develop ambivalent attachments.
    3. Dismissing: Claiming a ‘fine’ childhood, correlating with avoidant children.
SES, Culture, and Attachment
  • Socioeconomic Status (SES): Insecure attachment is more common among low-SES families owing to associated risk factors.
  • Cultural Influence: Secure attachment is universally prevalent, but types and expressions of insecurity can diverge by culture.
  • Early Separation Studies: Infants' adjustment to separations varies with age, indicating that separations can be traumatic when experienced after the first six months of life.
Emotions and Development

  1. Primary Emotions: Present from birth to 18 months (e.g., joy, sadness, fear).

  2. Secondary Emotions: Involve self-awareness; develop from 18 months onward (e.g., shame, guilt).

  3. Facial Expression Recognition: Infants' ability to recognize emotional expressions develops through infancy and influences interactions.

  4. Emotional Changes in Adulthood: Early adulthood experiences stability in emotional states, with age generally showing increased positivity and decreased negativity.

  5. Shame vs. Guilt:

    • Shame focuses on the self as being 'bad' and can hurt relationships.
    • Guilt is tied to actions and prompts apologies or reparative actions; research shows guilt effectively motivates positive behavioral change.

Aggression Types

By Function:
  • Instrumental (Proactive) Aggression: Goal-directed, often concerning desires (e.g., toys).
  • Hostile (Reactive) Aggression: Emotional and driven by anger, aimed at harming others.
By Form:
  • Physical: Hitting, destroying property.
  • Verbal: Insults, threats.
  • Relational: Damaging relationships through exclusion, rumors.
Developmental Trajectory
  • Physical aggression peaks around age two and decreases. Around preschool, verbal and relational aggressions begin to rise.
Causes of Aggression
  1. Coercive Family Interaction Model (Patterson): Families with escalatory interactions mark children as aggressive, creating a vicious cycle of misbehavior and aggressive response.
  2. Social Information Processing Model (Crick & Dodge): Steps that aggressive children take from initial cues to final aggressive actions, including hostile attribution biases and biased response selections.
Impact of Media on Aggression
  • APA meta-analysis indicates that violent media correlates with increased aggression and decreased empathy.
Interventions for Aggression
  • Parent training can effectively reduce aggression but varies by socioeconomic background.

Social Relationships in Childhood

Types of Play (Parten)
  • Nonsocial Play: Includes unoccupied, solitary, and onlooker play.
  • Social Play: Includes parallel, associative, and cooperative play, demonstrating increasing interaction.
Gender Segregation in Play
  • Same-gender preferences begin as early as 2 to 3 years of age but are pronounced in early and middle childhood.
Understanding of Friendship (Selman)
  1. Momentary Playmates (3-6 years): Friends are determined by proximity.
  2. One-Way Assistance (5-9 years): Friends are those who offer nice actions.
  3. Two-Way, Fair-Weather Cooperation (7-12 years): Fairness becomes important, otherwise relationships may end.
  4. Intimate, Mutually Shared Relationships (8-15 years): Stronger emotional connections and loyalty.
  5. Mature Friendship (12+): Characterized by acceptance and emotional closeness.
Peer Status
  • Unpopular Children: Can fall into rejected-aggressive, rejected-withdrawn, or neglected categories, each with different long-term outcomes.

Social Relationships in Adulthood

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (Carstensen)
  1. Younger Adults: Focus on gaining knowledge, future experiences, and larger friend networks.
  2. Older Adults: Emphasize emotional closeness and positive relationships.
Marriage and Emotion Regulation
  • Studies show older dissatisfied couples have learned to de-escalate conflicts more effectively, even amidst tension.
Successful Aging**

  1. Rowe & Kahn’s Model: Highlights low disease risk, high functioning, and active engagement in life.

    • Influences: Disease prevention allows for better functioning, leading to greater life engagement.

  2. Selective Optimization with Compensation (Baltes): Adapting to aging through: selection of meaningful goals, investment in relevant skills, and utilizing resources as abilities decline, thus maximizing gains.

Predictors of Divorce (Gottman & Levenson)

Key Patterns Identified
  1. Emotionally Volatile / Attack–Defend Patterns: High intensity, conflicts characterized by the Four Horsemen – criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
  2. Emotionally Inexpressive / Avoidant Patterns: Low emotional interactions with avoidance of open conflicts leading to potential later divorces.
Sociodemographic Predictors
  • Younger marriage age, lower socioeconomic status, having children before marriage, and prior marriage increase divorce risks.
Individual Characteristics
  • Prior psychiatric disorders and high neuroticism predict greater divorce likelihood.

Consequences of Divorce

Effect on Adults/Parents
  • Divorced persons generally report less happiness and psychological distress, with men typically facing temporary issues while women experience chronic financial and emotional hardship, especially custodial mothers.
Effects on Children
  • Impacts vary by age, gender, and family dynamic, with preschoolers experiencing more immediate emotional disruptions, while older children may develop long-term anxieties about relationships. Gender differences indicate varying behavioral reactions post-divorce.
Socioeconomic Status Post-Divorce
  • Many negative children's outcomes stem from financial strain.

Stepfamilies

  • Generally, kids in stepfamilies show slightly poorer outcomes, especially girls adjusting to stepfathers. However, supportive parenting dynamics can foster better connections.

Transition to Parenthood

  • The average trend indicates decreased relationship satisfaction and increased conflict, especially prevalent in early marriages and dependent on division of parenting responsibilities.

Effects of Early Maternal Employment

  • Mixed outcomes depending on income level, with employment linked to positive effects in low-income families.

Quality of Daycare

  • Higher quality daycare can lead to cognitive benefits despite some behavioral problems.

Cultural Socialization

  • Practices that instill cultural pride lead to positive outcomes in self-concept and academic motivation.

Teacher Expectations and Effects

  • Expectations can affect student performance, supporting self-fulfilling prophecies.

Conclusion

  • Comprehensive understanding of developmental milestones, social relationships, emotional growth, and family dynamics creates a framework for examining human behavior through various life stages effectively.