Explain the difference between continuous and discontinuous development, and give an example of each.

Scientists who argue that development is continuous point to slow and cumulative changes, such as a child slowly gaining experience, expanding his or her vocabulary, and learning strategies to become quicker at problem solving. Similarly, they point out that middle-aged adults experience gradual losses of muscle and strength.
The discontinuous view of development describes the changes we experience as large and abrupt, with individuals of various ages dramatically different from one another. For example, puberty transforms children's bodies into more adult-like adolescent bodies, infants' understanding and capacity for language is fundamentally different from that of school-aged children, and children make leaps in their reasoning abilities over the course of childhood, such as from believing that robotic dogs and other inanimate objects are alive to understanding that life is a biological process