Human Growth & Development — MCPY 605

Human development quizzes

Self-tests built section by section against Broderick & Blewitt, The Life Span: Human Development for Helping Professionals (6th ed.). 327 questions so far, each citing the Learning Objective and, where the text cites a source for a claim, that source too. Click to reveal answers and rationales. Not scored; for review, not assessment.

Lecture-deck emphasis: questions covering a concept the instructor’s chapter slides explicitly name are marked on the lecture deck and can be isolated with the filter button at the top of each quiz — 144 of 327. Untagged questions test textbook detail the slides skip. The slides themselves are Pearson instructor material and are not reproduced here; only the emphasis signal is used.
In progress: this class started Fall 2026 and quizzes are added as the reading is covered. Chapters 1 and 3 are complete. Where the textbook cites another author for a claim, the citation line says so — useful later if a claim needs tracing to its primary source rather than being cited to the textbook.

Chapter 1 — Organizing Themes in Development

LO 1.1 — Reflective practice and developmental science

Technical rationality and its limits, the “dual curriculum,” Schön’s reflective practice and its sequence, expert–novice research, partial lenses, implicit theories, self-monitoring.

20 questions 6 on deck

LO 1.2 — Classic theories: stage and incremental

How developmental science emerged; what defines a stage; Freud, Erikson, and Piaget; conditioning, social learning, and information processing; the either-or issues classic theories raised.

32 questions 15 on deck

LO 1.3 — Multidimensional and systems theories

Bidirectional causation across levels, Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory and the culture critique, life span theory and Baltes’s architecture of supports, and the Juliana case.

18 questions 14 on deck

LO 1.4 — Core developmental issues

Why nature and nurture are not separable, neuroplasticity and critical periods, universality and specificity — WEIRD samples, race as construction, the SES conflation, cross-cultural studies.

19 questions 8 on deck

LO 1.5 — Risk and resilience

Developmental psychopathology, multifinality and equifinality, trauma and the long-term follow-up studies, mediators and moderators, risk models, resilience as a systems property, steeling and sensitization.

29 questions 14 on deck

Applications — Practice and evidence

Cultural competence standards across three professions, the research–practice gap and translational research, prevention typologies, and how to tell whether a claim rests on real evidence.

20 questions 1 on deck

Chapter 3 — Cognitive Development in the Early Years

LO 3.1 — Piaget’s constructivist theory

Adaptation through assimilation and accommodation, Piaget’s methods and biography, the constructivist stance, and the stage controversy including domain specificity.

17 questions 9 on deck

LO 3.2 — The sensorimotor stage

Habituation and preferential looking, face perception and the other-race effect, object permanence and the Baillargeon challenge, recognition versus recall, and intentional action.

28 questions 18 on deck

LO 3.3 — Preoperational thought

Centration and decentration, the three executive functions, number conservation and Gelman’s magic number games, and theory of mind through false belief.

35 questions 23 on deck

LO 3.3 — Language development

Phonology through pragmatics, the bilingual child, parentese and verbal responsiveness, the “30 million word gap” and what later research found, and narrative skill.

37 questions 24 on deck

LO 3.4 — Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory

Tools and signs, mediated learning, scaffolding and the zone of proximal development, intersubjectivity, and private speech becoming inner speech.

20 questions 11 on deck

Applications — Practice with young children

Adult cognitive egocentrism, sibling rivalry and childhood fears, screen time, school readiness, curriculum evaluation, and early childhood education.

26 questions 1 on deck

Focus — Autism Spectrum Disorders

The Kanner–Asperger history, diagnostic criteria and adaptive functioning, brain and genetic findings, the vaccine evidence, and treatment approaches.

26 questions none on deck