Psychology · Unit 7

How We Grow

Development across childhood and life

Developmental psychology tracks how thinking, attachment and identity change across a life, and it shows that children are not simply less-informed adults - they reason differently.

The unit covers child development, attachment, Piaget's stages, adolescence, and development across the whole lifespan.

This unit breaks down into 23 short steps and 120 questions, starting at difficulty 1 and building to 5. Below you can see exactly what it covers, how the path is structured, and worked examples with explanations.

Steps: 23
Questions: 120
Difficulty: 1-5

What this unit covers

Child Development
Attachment
Adolescence
Piaget's Stages
The Whole Lifespan

Where this fits

Follows What is Psychology?

Where people slip

Piaget's stages are approximately right and too rigid. Later work found children capable of things his stages said they should not be, and the ages are averages rather than gates.

How the unit is structured

How We Grow runs as 23 short steps that unlock in order. 17 are practice rounds and 6 are challenge rounds that pull together everything before them. Questions start at difficulty 1 and climb to 5 as you progress.

Step 1 · easierStep 23 · harder

Challenge rounds

Example questions

30 real questions from this unit, with the answer and the reason behind it, grouped by what they practise. There are 120 in the unit altogether.

Adolescence

Fill the blankLevel 1
1. The teenage years between childhood and adulthood are called ____.
- adolescencecorrect
- infancy
- retirement
- toddlerhood
Adolescence is the name for the stage between being a child and being an adult.
Multiple choiceLevel 1
2. What is adolescence?
- The stage of growing from a child into an adultcorrect
- The very first year of life
- The last years of old age
- The time before a baby is born
Adolescence is the stage of growing from a child into an adult, roughly the teenage years.
True or falseLevel 1
3. Puberty is a set of body changes that happen during adolescence.
Answer: True
True, puberty is the body maturing so it can grow into an adult body.
Odd one outLevel 2
4. Which of these is NOT a change of adolescence?
- Losing your very first baby toothcorrect
- A growth spurt
- Changes in the voice
- Wanting more independence
A growth spurt, voice changes, and wanting more independence happen in adolescence, but losing your first baby tooth happens in childhood.
Type the answerLevel 2
5. The stage of body changes where a child's body becomes able to grow into an adult body is called what?
Answer: puberty
Puberty is the physical change that turns a child's body into an adult's.
Choose all that applyLevel 3
6. Which of these commonly change during adolescence? Choose all that apply.
- Growing more independent from parentscorrect
- Caring more about friends' opinionscorrect
- Exploring personal identitycorrect
- Losing the ability to speak
Teens usually grow independent, value friends more, and explore who they are, but they do not lose speech.

Attachment

Multiple choiceLevel 1
7. In psychology, what is attachment?
- The strong emotional bond between a baby and caregivercorrect
- A file added to an email
- A type of baby toy
- A fear of the dark
Attachment is the strong emotional bond between a baby and the people who care for it.
Fill the blankLevel 2
8. A baby crying and searching when a parent leaves the room shows separation ____.
- anxietycorrect
- joy
- hunger
- sleepiness
Separation anxiety is the distress a baby feels when a trusted caregiver goes away.
Odd one outLevel 2
9. Which of these does NOT help a baby form a secure attachment?
- Ignoring the baby when it criescorrect
- Cuddling the baby
- Comforting the baby when upset
- Responding warmly to the baby
Cuddling, comforting, and responding warmly build attachment, but ignoring the baby does not.
Choose all that applyLevel 3
10. Which of these are signs of a secure attachment? Choose all that apply.
- Seeks comfort from the caregiver when upsetcorrect
- Is happy to explore when the caregiver is nearcorrect
- Is soothed fairly quickly on reunioncorrect
- Ignores the caregiver completely on return
Secure babies seek comfort, explore confidently, and calm down when reunited with their caregiver.
Sort into groupsLevel 3
11. Sort each reunion behavior as Secure or Insecure attachment.
Answer: Calms quickly when the caregiver returns = Secure; Explores happily with the caregiver nearby = Secure; Ignores the caregiver on their return = Insecure; Stays very upset and hard to soothe = Insecure
Secure babies settle and explore, while insecure babies may avoid the caregiver or stay distressed.
Match the pairsLevel 5
12. Match each researcher to their attachment contribution.
Answer: Bowlby = Attachment theory and monotropy; Ainsworth = The Strange Situation; Harlow = Contact comfort in monkeys; Main = Disorganized attachment
Each of these researchers added a key piece to our understanding of attachment.

Child Development

Fill the blankLevel 1
13. The way children grow and change as they get older is called ____.
- developmentcorrect
- decoration
- digestion
- decay
Development is the word for all the growing and changing a child goes through.
Multiple choiceLevel 1
14. What is a developmental milestone?
- A skill most children reach around a certain agecorrect
- A stone marker beside a road
- A kind of toy just for babies
- A rule that all children grow at the same speed
A milestone is a skill, like sitting or walking, that most children reach around a certain age.
True or falseLevel 1
15. Most babies learn to crawl before they learn to walk.
Answer: True
True, crawling usually comes first and helps build the strength for walking.
Choose all that applyLevel 2
16. Which of these are things that develop as a child grows? Choose all that apply.
- Walkingcorrect
- Talkingcorrect
- Readingcorrect
- Getting shorter each year
Walking, talking, and reading all develop with age, but children do not get shorter each year.
Odd one outLevel 2
17. Which of these is NOT a typical baby milestone?
- Reading a chapter bookcorrect
- Crawling
- Sitting up
- Taking first steps
Crawling, sitting up, and first steps are baby milestones, but reading a chapter book comes much later.
Type the answerLevel 2
18. The repeated baby sounds like 'ba-ba' and 'da-da' that come before real words are called what?
Answer: babbling
Babbling is the practice sound-making babies do before they say real words.

Piaget's Stages

Multiple choiceLevel 1
19. What did the psychologist Piaget mainly study?
- How children think and learn as they growcorrect
- How adults sleep at night
- How animals hunt for food
- How plants grow toward light
Piaget is famous for studying how children think and learn as they grow.
Fill the blankLevel 2
20. Knowing that a toy still exists even when you cannot see it is called object ____.
- permanencecorrect
- memory
- shadow
- gravity
Object permanence is understanding that hidden things are still there.
Guess the numberLevel 2
21. How many main stages of children's thinking did Piaget describe?
Answer: 4 stages
Piaget described four main stages of thinking as children grow up.
Put in orderLevel 2
22. Put Piaget's four stages of thinking in order from youngest to oldest.
Answer: Sensorimotor -> Preoperational -> Concrete operational -> Formal operational
Piaget's order is sensorimotor, then preoperational, then concrete operational, then formal operational.
Match the pairsLevel 3
23. Match each Piaget stage to something a child in it can do.
Answer: Sensorimotor = Learns through touching and moving; Preoperational = Uses pretend play and symbols; Concrete operational = Thinks logically about real objects; Formal operational = Reasons about abstract ideas
Each of Piaget's stages brings a new way of thinking, from senses to abstract reasoning.
Odd one outLevel 3
24. Which of these is NOT one of Piaget's four stages?
- Psychosocial stagecorrect
- Sensorimotor stage
- Preoperational stage
- Formal operational stage
Sensorimotor, preoperational, and formal operational are Piaget's stages, but psychosocial stages come from Erikson.

The Whole Lifespan

Fill the blankLevel 1
25. The whole period of a person's life from birth to death is called the ____.
- lifespancorrect
- timeline
- calendar
- season
The lifespan covers a person's entire life from beginning to end.
Multiple choiceLevel 1
26. What does lifespan development study?
- How people change from birth all the way through old agecorrect
- Only how newborn babies grow
- Only what happens in old age
- Only the years spent at school
Lifespan development studies how people change from birth all the way through old age.
Match the pairsLevel 2
27. Match each life stage to who it describes.
Answer: Infancy = A newborn baby; Childhood = A young kid at school; Adolescence = A teenager; Adulthood = A grown-up
Each life stage describes a different point in a person's life, from newborn to grown-up.
Put in orderLevel 2
28. Put these life stages in order from youngest to oldest.
Answer: Infancy -> Childhood -> Adolescence -> Adulthood
Life goes infancy, then childhood, then adolescence, then adulthood.
Sort into groupsLevel 2
29. Sort each thing into whether it fits a Baby or a Teenager.
Answer: Learns to crawl = Baby; Says a first word = Baby; Worries about identity = Teenager; Faces peer pressure = Teenager
Babies learn to crawl and say first words, while teenagers worry about identity and face peer pressure.
Choose all that applyLevel 3
30. Which of these does lifespan development look at? Choose all that apply.
- How thinking changes with agecorrect
- How relationships change over lifecorrect
- How the body changes across lifecorrect
- How to build a car engine
Lifespan development studies thinking, relationships, and the body across life, not engineering.

Where these questions come from. Each unit starts as a plan of the concepts it should cover and the difficulty it should span. Questions are written against that plan with AI assistance, then checked by a validator that rejects anything without a single defensible answer, an explanation, or plausible wrong options. How we write questions sets out the whole process, and corrections are fixed in the bank and reach the site and the app the same day.

How you practise

This unit mixes 10 different question formats, so you are recalling and applying rather than recognising the same layout every time.

Choose all that apply
Fill the blank
Guess the number
Match the pairs
Multiple choice
Odd one out
Put in order
Sort into groups
True or false
Type the answer

Practise How We Grow

120 questions across 23 steps. Start with step one and crawl at your own pace.

Play this unit

Read about How We Grow

Explainers from our blog on what this unit covers. Each one ends with real questions from the bank.

More units in Psychology

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