Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective

by Martha Lally, Suzanne Valentine-French

Open Source textbook

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction to Lifespan Development
Chapter 2: Heredity, Prenatal Development, and Birth
Chapter 3: Infancy and Toddlerhood
Chapter 4: Early Childhood
Chapter 5: Middle and Late Childhood
Chapter 6: Adolescence
Chapter 7: Emerging and Early Adulthood
Chapter 8: Middle Adulthood
Chapter 9: Late Adulthood
Chapter 10: Death and Dying

Open Textbook Library

Genres: Psychology, School, College

468 pages, PDF

Published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Eraldo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seem like an academic book for a psychological course, i appreciate so much that there are many sources where studies come from and all statistics, if you know a little about development and you want to know basic-medium knowledge, this is good.

[ChadO · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, the book was pretty decent. I do like how the information was chronological, easy to follow and had graphs and figures to explain some topics. I didn't necessarily care for the circular definitions that they would give for some topics. They usually tried to follow up with examples which usually clarified the terms. Another area that I didn't care for was the presentation on some of the statistics. I felt like when you're listing a bunch of numbers, it can easily distract from the points you're trying to make. I felt myself having to re-read very carefully on numerous occasions. I had to use this book for my Dev. Psych. class, and I'm super glad that I got a free pdf version from class.

[Victoria]

I read this for my psych of adolescence and adulthood course this fall semester. I think it was a pretty good textbook, informative and not super boring. Also, there are enough images so that it doesn’t just become a text filled page either, which can end up being another problem with some textbooks. Overall, a good source I think.

[Lexi Dudney · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a textbook for my human growth and development class, it was definitely a good one and included lots of information. I liked how it was chronological. At times it was just soooo hard to get through because of the dense amount of information it contained. I will definitely be going back and reading again once I start a family of my own.

[With_lovelaurent · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never thought I would get emotional over developmental theories. I had a department exam on this cover-to-cover page exam and listed 50 item scoring. I literally just died. I can't believe I finished this before "If we were Villains" by M.L Rio... so disappointed in myself, tbh anyways, being a psych student is so fucking hard, worth it tho.

[Ripp Chazire]

I wouldn't say I like textbooks, but this one is particularly repetitive, and the formatting makes no sense; multiple research studies are intermixed in areas they don't apply in—information about adults in the chapters about children and vice versus.

[S. J. Holton · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many misspelled words and poorly punctuated sentences. I question why a professor would use this text.

[avery · Rating 2 out of 5]

lowkey not bad for a textbook. easy to skim

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for my Human Development course. A great read with the study material for class. Goes in depth from “womb to tomb” what humans go through throughout their lifespan.

[hirayannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should I consider this as a book I read in 2023? (I mean I did read 400+ pages of that for class so I guess why not?)

[naura medina · Rating 5 out of 5]

lecturer told me to read. 5 stars bc why not?!?! it mustve been tiring writing all that. and i pretty much understood them

[madeline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This text, although very informative, was extremely dense and took a veryyyyy long time to get through. Almost every chapter was over 50 pages long, and they felt even longer. I felt that at times it provided statistics that, while potentially interesting, did not provide much actual value to the text. I also had a hard time, specifically during the last two chapters, not scaring myself while reading this. It's important to understand the final stages of life and dying, yes, but I wish a bit more time had been afforded to the positive aspects of older age. They were mentioned, yes, but only after like 40 pages of listing various diseases and the percentage of people who are affected by them.

(Read for PSYCH 203: Introduction to Lifespan Development)

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked how it included many different aspects of life and how they can impact development!