This chapter offers examples of three different "qualitative stage progessions.". What is qualitative stage progession? Briefly outline and discuss the different qualitative stage progessions from the chapter

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Qualitative changes are changes in form or kind—changes that make the individual fundamentally different in some way than he or she was earlier. The transformation of a tadpole into a frog is a qualitative change. Similarly, an infant who lacks language may be qualitatively different from a preschooler who speaks well, and an adolescent who is sexually mature may be fundamentally different from a classmate who has yet to reach puberty. Discontinuity theorists tend to portray development as a sequence of qualitative changes. Discontinuity theorists are the ones who claim that we progress through developmental stages, each of which is a distinct phase of life characterized by a particular set of abilities, emotions, motives, or behaviors that form a coherent pattern.
We encountered three different qualitative stage progressions in this chapter. First, the developing organism proceeds through three qualitatively distinct stages in prenatal development: the zygote, the embryo, and the fetus. Second, the pregnant woman goes through three qualitatively distinct stages during pregnancy: the first, second, and third trimesters. (And remember that the stages of the developing organism do not correspond chronologically to the pregnant woman's stages.) Finally, we saw that the birth process can be divided into three qualitatively distinct stages: labor, birth, and afterbirth. As usual, however, we can also see quantitative change in prenatal development. For example, the period of the fetus consists mainly of quantitative changes as the organism grows in size and refines the structures and functions that first develop in the period of the embryo.