Developmental Psychology Workflow Router (devpsych-workflow)

The orchestrator for a Developmental Psychology submission. This APA journal publishes empirical work on development across the life span, and its defining demand is a credible claim about developmental change — age effects, within-person change, or trajectories — reported under APA 7th + JARS, with masked review and Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) expectations. The router makes sure the developmental claim, the design, and the open-science package are all handled, then dispatches.

When to trigger

• Starting a new Developmental Psychology paper and unsure where to begin
• Mid-project and unsure which skill applies next
• Choosing a length tier (brief report vs. larger report vs. multi-study/longitudinal report)
• Returning with a decision letter (route to devpsych-rebuttal)

First question: what kind of developmental claim and design?

Situation	Design	Route note
Age differences at one time point	Cross-sectional	name the age/cohort confound early (devpsych-study-design)
Within-person change over time	Longitudinal / cohort	attrition + measurement invariance are load-bearing
Process of change in close-up	Micro-genetic	dense sampling; justify granularity
Causal manipulation with minors	Experiment	ethics/assent + age-appropriate task validity
Re-using a large panel (e.g., NICHD, ECLS)	Secondary analysis	declare provenance, derived measures, version

Routing map (stage → skill)

Idea / fit + age scope?            → devpsych-topic-selection
Developmental theory + hypotheses? → devpsych-theory-and-hypotheses
Where does it sit in the field?    → devpsych-literature-positioning
Design / power / invariance / age? → devpsych-study-design
Growth-curve / multilevel / SEM?   → devpsych-data-analysis
Trajectory exhibits (APA)?         → devpsych-tables-figures
APA 7th + Public Significance?     → devpsych-writing-style
Data/materials + preregistration?  → devpsych-open-science-and-transparency
How will it be judged (masked)?    → devpsych-review-process
Ready to submit (Editorial Mgr)?   → devpsych-submission
Got an R&R / decision?             → devpsych-rebuttal

Default order

topic-selection → theory-and-hypotheses → literature-positioning → study-design → data-analysis → tables-figures → writing-style → open-science-and-transparency → review-process → submission → rebuttal

If the design is prospective and confirmatory, pull study-design and open-science-and-transparency forward so a preregistration and a sample-size justification exist before data collection.

Worked micro-example — routing a live project (illustrative)

A team has a three-wave accelerated longitudinal study of self-regulation (ages 4, 6, 8; some attrition), fitting growth curves, and a reviewer-anticipated worry about measurement invariance. The router walks them:

Claim:   within-person growth in effortful control, age 4→8.
Design:  longitudinal/cohort (accelerated) → invariance + attrition are central.
Entry:   not idea-stage; they are at design hardening + analysis.
Route:   study-design (invariance test plan; attrition/FIML; age-vs-cohort)
         → data-analysis (latent growth / multilevel; time coding)
         → tables-figures (spaghetti + mean-trajectory plot, CIs)
         → writing-style (APA 7th; Public Significance Statement)
         → open-science-and-transparency (data/scripts; prereg if confirmatory)
         → submission (masked preflight) ; on R&R → rebuttal.
Flag:    test longitudinal measurement invariance BEFORE interpreting change.

Stage-triage table (symptom → skill)

What the author says	Stage	Route to
"Is age difference enough, or do I need change?"	fit	devpsych-topic-selection
"Reviewer: is your construct the same at every age?"	design/analysis	devpsych-study-design + devpsych-data-analysis
"Cross-sectional age effect — but is it cohort?"	design	devpsych-study-design
"Where does the Public Significance Statement go?"	writing	devpsych-writing-style
"Do I need to share data and preregister?"	transparency	devpsych-open-science-and-transparency
"I have an R&R"	revision	devpsych-rebuttal

Routing pitfalls specific to this venue

• Sending an age-comparison straight to devpsych-data-analysis without first separating age from cohort and confirming measurement invariance — the change claim collapses if the construct shifts.
• Deferring devpsych-open-science-and-transparency; under TOP, deposits and a preregistration are far cheaper to build before data than to retrofit at acceptance.

Anti-patterns

• Treating a cross-sectional age difference as developmental change without addressing cohort confounds
• Interpreting trajectories before establishing longitudinal measurement invariance
• Forgetting the Public Significance Statement (an APA requirement on the abstract page)
• Ignoring masked-review anonymization in the manuscript or in shared links

Output format

【Stage】idea / theory / positioning / design / analysis / exhibits / writing / transparency / review / submit / rebut
【Design】cross-sectional / longitudinal-cohort / micro-genetic / experiment / secondary
【Route to】devpsych-<skill>
【Why】one line
【Then】the next skill after that

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — longitudinal/SEM tooling, power, preregistration, developmental data archives
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official Developmental Psychology URLs behind every fact in this pack