In child development, these terms refer to the notion that the goal of infancy (from birth to 18 months) is to develop a basic trust or sense of trust of the world.

A state in the process of identity development in which an individual makes conscious decisions about their occupation and ideology for example, and consolidates these various factors.

Instruction that equips students with foundational skills and background knowledge to prepare them for subsequent formal teaching.

The first and second stages in Kohlberg’s model of moral reasoning in which individuals weigh value-laden factors and make moral judgments based on their interests.

The stage in Piaget’s theory of moral development in which children believe rules to be immutable and that they will thus be punished automatically for breaking them.

According to Erikson, the set of critical issues that individuals must address as they pass through each of the eight life stages.

The phase at which an individual can undertake logical reasoning and work abstractly with hypotheticals. According to Piaget, this occurs from age eleven to adulthood.

A skill acquired in the concrete operational stage of Piaget’s cognitive development theory in which individuals can mentally process classes of objects and the relationships between their subcategories, simultaneously.

Analysis of a problem through meaning discovered in the context of other relevant information. It is a necessary cognitive skill in the development of children’s semantic aptitude.

The phenomenon in which certain properties of an object (such as weight) remain unchanged despite changes in other properties (such as length).