Key Concepts
Erikson's 8 psychosocial stages span from trust vs. mistrust (infancy) through integrity vs. despair (late adulthood)
Piaget's cognitive development includes sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages
Kohlberg's moral development has three levels (preconventional, conventional, postconventional) with two stages each
Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory describes nested environmental systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem
Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD) describes the gap between what a learner can do independently and what they can do with guidance
Attachment theory (Bowlby and Ainsworth) identifies secure, anxious-ambivalent, anxious-avoidant, and disorganized attachment styles
Gilligan critiqued Kohlberg's model for gender bias and proposed an ethics-of-care perspective on moral development
Why This Matters for the Exam
Human development theories are heavily tested on the NCE (part of the Human Growth and Development content area) and the ASWB exams (part of the Human Development, Diversity, and Behavior domain). Expect questions that ask you to identify which developmental stage a person is in based on their behavior, match theories to their originators, and apply developmental concepts to clinical scenarios.
Study Tips
Create a comparison chart of the major theorists and their stages. Focus on being able to identify which theorist and stage applies to a given scenario. Pay special attention to Erikson (most frequently tested), Piaget, and Kohlberg. Know the age ranges associated with each stage and the key crisis or task at each stage. Practice questions that give you a client description and ask which developmental stage or theory applies.