AP Psychology: Development Test Prep

• The AP Psychology Development Test consists of 30 multiple choice questions and an Article Analysis Question (AAQ).
• The AAQ requires analyzing a study by addressing its research method, operational definitions, statistical interpretation, ethical guidelines, generalizability, and whether it supports the hypothesis.

Prenatal Development

• The three stages of prenatal development are zygote, embryo, and fetus.
• Teratogens like alcohol and smoking negatively affect prenatal development.
• Expect questions about Piaget's theory.

Newborn Development

• The Apgar Scale measures breathing, heart rate, muscle tone, color, and reflexes.
• Rooting and sucking are feeding reflexes in newborns.
• Moro and grasping are survival reflexes.
• Hearing is the best sense for newborns.
• Sight is the worst sense for newborns.

Developmental Sequence

• This refers to the average age at which children display certain behaviors or abilities.
• The order of milestones is more important than the exact age.

Motor Development

• Motor development includes fine and gross motor skills.
• Development proceeds in a cephalocaudal (head to tail) and proximodistal (center to periphery) direction.
• Motor skills are associated with myelin sheath development.

Language

• The order of language development is cooing, babbling, holophrases, telegraphic speech, and full sentences.
• Rules of language include overextension/overgeneralization and underextension.
• Phonemes are the smallest units of sound in a language (40 in English, 100 in total).
• Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language.
• Grammar includes semantics and syntax.

Piaget's Theory

• Be prepared to identify each stage and its key terms, along with related examples.
• Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) involves object permanence and separation/stranger anxiety.
• Preoperational stage (2-6/7 years) features egocentrism and animism.
• Children in the preoperational stage don't understand reversibility, conservation, or classification.
• Concrete Operational stage (7-11 years) involves literal thinking and following rules.
• Children in the concrete operational stage are not egocentric.
• Understand conservation, reversibility, centration, and classification characterize the Concrete Operational stage
• Formal Operational Stage (11/12 & up) enables symbolic thought and reasoning.
• All stages involve assimilation and accommodation.

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

• Focus on knowing the levels, not specific individual stages.
• The Preconventional stage (under 6) is characterized by egocentrism.
• Fear of authority and punishment are present in preconventional stage.
• Conventional stage (6-7/11) involves becoming logical.
• Taking on others' perspectives, literal rule following, and seeking affection and approval mark conventional.
• The Postconventional stage involves abstract thinking.

Attachment

• Mary Ainsworth identified four types of attachment.
• Harry Harlow researched contact comfort.

Other Key Concepts

• Parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and neglectful.
• Temperament: easy, slow-to-warm, and difficult (Thomas and Chess).
• Physical development includes primary and secondary sex characteristics.
• Differences exist in early versus late maturation.
• Cognitive development includes David Elkind's Adolescent Egocentrism and its characteristics.
• Focus on how gender roles/stereotypes develop.
• Adulthood: crystallized vs. fluid intelligence.
• Crystallized intelligence increases, while fluid intelligence decreases.
• Imprinting involves a critical period during which attachments can form.