Developmental stages cannot be skipped by which group?

• A. Healthy individuals
• B. Children
• C. Adolescents
• D. Adults

Answer: (A)

Development unfolds in a fixed, stepwise sequence: each stage builds on the skills and capacities established in the previous one. In typical, healthy development, you move through infancy, early childhood, school-age years, adolescence, and adulthood in order, and you don’t bypass an entire stage. The abilities that characterize later stages depend on having achieved earlier milestones, so skipping stages isn’t how healthy development works. That’s why this statement is true for healthy individuals. When health problems or traumatic experiences occur, progression can slow or arrest, which can resemble not moving through stages as expected, but by default, the expectation is continuous, orderly progression for healthy development.