Developmental psychology across the lifespan: Piaget, Vygotsky, Erikson, attachment, Bronfenbrenner, Baltes and resilience – a compact guide for your studies and practice.
Self-study course as companion material for your studies, for students of social work, childhood education and special needs education (Heilpädagogik) and for people starting out in social work fields who want to revise the foundations of developmental psychology, practise for timed written papers and apply the theories to cases – 8 modules, approx. 8 hours, at your own pace, with confirmation of participation after working through all modules. Sources in APA 7, as of October 2026.
The modules:
- Basic concepts: development, maturation, learning and developmental tasks
- Cognitive development: Piaget and Vygotsky compared
- Psychosocial and ecological perspectives: Erikson and Bronfenbrenner
- Early childhood: attachment theory after Bowlby and Ainsworth
- Middle childhood and adolescence: peers, puberty and identity
- Adulthood and old age: lifespan psychology after Baltes
- Resilience, risk and protective factors across the lifespan
- Developmental deviations, transfer to practice and practice for timed written papers
Not a degree programme and not offered by a university; it does not replace any lecture or seminar, any university examination or any practical placement.
📘 Background reading (in German): Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten im Studium: gute Praxis, Zitieren und KI
Self-study without supervision, assignments or evaluation of learning progress by instructors; the voluntary self-reflection is for your own orientation only. Your confirmation of participation becomes available once you have marked all modules as done yourself.