Supervision of Instruction-A Developmental Approach. Allyn and Bacon, 1990. To effectively present programs to adult participants in Extension, it's important to know how adults develop as they mature, and what learning style most appropriately fits each developmental stage.
Adult development is the study of adult capacity to improve over time.
Research on life-span transitions focuses on typical events and experiences people encounter as they age. Adults change in predictable ways according to age, individual characteristics, and demands of the environment. Glickman has found that cognitive, social, and language development don't end with adolescence or early adulthood, but continue throughout life. Research on aging and learning has identified two categories of intelligence, one that increases during adulthood, one that decreases. These learning categories should be taken into account in planning program presentations.