Child Development Ch. 4 - 6

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Growth charts

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Charts showing average values of height, weight and other measures of growth, based on large samples of normally developing infants and used to evaluate an infant’s development

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Fontanels

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“Soft spots” or spaces separating the bones of the skull prenatally and in early infancy

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Synaptogenesis

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The process of synapse formation

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Spinal cord

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The part of the central nervous system that extends from below the waist to the base of the brain

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Brain stem

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The base of the brain, which controls such elementary reactions as blinking and sucking, as well as such vital functions as breathing and sleeping

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Cerebral cortex

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The brain’s outermost layer. The networks of neurons here integrate info from several sensory sources with memories of past experiences, processing them in a way that results in human forms of thought and action

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Experience-expectant

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Development of neural connections under genetic controls that occurs in any normal environment

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Experience-dependent

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Development of neural connections that is initiated in response to experience

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Exuberant synaptogenesis

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A rapid growth in synaptic density that prepares the brain for a vast range of possible experiences

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Synaptic pruning

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The process of selective dying of off non-functional synapses

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Habituation

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The process in which attention to novelty decreases with repeated exposures

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Dishabituation

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The term used to describe the situation in which an infant’s interest is renewed after a change in the stimulus

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Phonemes

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The smallest sound categories in human speech that distinguish meanings, vary from language to language

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Intermodal perception

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The understanding that a certain object or event can be simultaneously perceived by more than one sensory system

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Reflex

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A specific, well-integrated, automatic response to a specific type of stimulation

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Action

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Complex and coordinated behaviors

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Grasping reflex

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When a finger or some other object is pressed against the baby’s palm, the fingers close around it

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Sensorimotor stage

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Piaget’s term for the stage of infancy during which the process of adaptation consists largely of coordinating sensory perceptions and simple motor behaviors to acquire knowledge of the world

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Substage 1

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Infants learn to control and coordinate inborn reflexes

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Substage 2

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Accommodation first appears, with infants’ prolonging pleasant sensations arising from reflex actions

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Primary circular reaction

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The term Piaget used to describe the infant’s tendency to repeat pleasurable bodily actions for their own sake

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Learning

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A relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by the experience of events in the environment

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Classical conditioning

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Learning in which previously existing behaviors come to be elicited by new stimuli

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Conditional stimulus

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In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits a behavior that is dependent on the way it’s paired with the unconditional stimulus

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Unconditional stimulus

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In classical conditioning, the stimulus (such as food in the mouth) that causes the unconditional response

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Unconditional response

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In classical conditioning, the response (such as salivation) that is elicited by the unconditional stimulus

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Conditional response

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In classical conditioning, a response to the conditional stimulus

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Operant conditioning

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Learning in which changes in behavior are shaped by the consequences of that behavior, thereby giving rise to new and more complete behaviors

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Temperament

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An individual’s emotional and behavioral characteristics that appear to be consistent across situations and to have some stability over time

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Easy babies

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Are playful, are regular in their basic biological functions, and adapt readily to new circumstances

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Difficult babies

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Are irregular in their biological functions, are irritable, and often respond negatively to new situations

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Slow-to-warm-up babies

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Are low in activity level, tend to withdraw from new situations in a mild way, and require more time to adapt to change

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Prefrontal area

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Part of the cortex located directly behind the forehead, and important to the development of voluntary behaviors

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Fine motor skills

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Motor skills related to the development and coordination of small muscles, such as those that move the fingers and eyes

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Gross motor skills

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Motor skills related to the development and coordination of larger muscles, important for locomotion

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Locomotion

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The ability to move around on one’s own

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Sensorimotor substage 3

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Dawning awareness of relation of own actions to environment, extended actions that produce interesting changes in the environment

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Substage 4

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Combining schemas to achieve a desired effect, earliest form of problem solving

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Substage 5

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Deliberate variation of problem-solving means, experimentation to see what the consequences will be

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Substage 6

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Images and words come to stand for familiar objects, invention of new means of problem solving through symbolic combinations

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Secondary circular reactions

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The behavior characteristic of the 3rd substage of Piaget’s sensorimotor stages, in which babies repeat actions to produce interesting changes in their environments

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Intentionality

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The ability to engage in behaviors directed toward achieving a certain goal

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Tertiary circular reactions

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The 5th stage of the sensorimotor period, which is characterized by the deliberate variation of action sequences to solve problems and explore the world

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Representations

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The ability to form mental symbols and present experiences to oneself mentally, emerges during substage 6

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Symbolic play

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Play in which one object stands for, or represents, another

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Deferred imitation

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The ability to imitate an action observed in the past

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Object permanence

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The understanding that objects have substance, maintain their identities when they change location and ordinarily continue to exist when out of sight

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A-not-B error

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In an object permanence task, when the child looks in location A, where the object had previously been found, even though the child had just observed the object hidden in location B

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Violation-of-expectations method

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A test of mental representation in which the child is habituated to an event, and then presented with possible and impossible variations of that event

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Implicit memory

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The ability to recognize objects and events that have been previously experienced

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Explicit memory

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The ability to recall absent objects and events without any clear reminder

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Emotion

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A feeling state that involves distinct physiological reactions and cognitive evaluations, and motivates action

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Emotion regulation

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Ways of acting to modulate and control emotions

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Basic emotions

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Joy, fear, surprise, anger, sadness, disgust – universal emotions, expressed similarly in all cultures and present at birth or in the early months

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Theory of gradual differentiation

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The view that infants are born only with general emotional reactions, which differentiate into basic emotions over the first 2 years

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Differential emotions theory

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The view that basic emotions are innate and emerge in their adult form, either at birth or on a biologically determined timetable

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Ontogenetic adaptation

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Something that has evolved because it contributes to survival and normal development; in one view, infant emotions are ontogenetic adaptations

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Primary intersubjectivity

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Organized, reciprocal interaction between infant and caregiver with the interaction itself as the focus

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Mirror neurons

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Special brain cells that fire when an individual sees or hears another perform an action, just as they would fire if they were performing that action themselves

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Attachment

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The emotional bond that children form with their caregivers at about 7 to 9 mo.

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Biological drives

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Impulses to attempt to satisfy essential physiological needs

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Detachment

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For Bowlby, the state of indifference toward others experienced by children who have been separated from their caregiver for an extended time and have not formed a new stable relationship

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Secure base

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Bowlby’s term for the people whose presence provides the child with the security that allows him or her to make exploratory excursions

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Separation anxiety

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The distress that babies show when the person to whom they are attached leaves

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Internal working model

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A mental model that children construct as a result of their experiences with their caregivers and that they use to guide their interactions with their caregivers and others

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Strange situation

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A procedure designed to assess children’s attachment on the basis of their responses to strangers when they are with their mothers and when they are left alone, and when they are reunited with their mothers

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Secure attachment

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A pattern of attachment in which children play comfortably and react positively to a stranger as long as the mother is present. They become upset when their mother leaves, and are unlikely to be consoled by a stranger, but they calm down as soon as the mother reappears

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Avoidant attachment

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The attachment pattern in which infants are indifferent to where their mother is sitting, may or may not cry when their mother leaves, are as likely to be comforted by a stranger as their mother, and are indifferent when the mother returns

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Resistant attachment

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The attachment pattern in which infants stay close to their mother and appear anxious even when she is near. They become very upset when their mother leaves but are not comforted by her return

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Disorganized attachment

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The insecure attachment pattern in which infants seem to lack a coherent method for dealing with stress. They may behave in seemingly contradictory ways, such as screaming for their mother but moving away when she approaches.

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Secondary intersubjectivity

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A form of interaction between infant and caregiver, emerging at about 9 to 12 months, with communication and emotional sharing focused not just on the interaction but on the world beyond

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Social referencing

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A form of secondary intersubjectivity in which infants look to their caregiver for an indication of how to feel and act upon encountering an unfamiliar object or event

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Perpetual scaffolding

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The way in which a familiar word serves as an anchor for learning new words that come immediately before or after it

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Babbling

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A form of vocalizing, beginning at around 7 months, in which infants utter strings of syllables that combine a consonant sound and a vowel sound

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Self conscious emotions

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Emotions such as embarrassment, pride, shame, guilt and envy, which emerge after 8 months with infants’ growing consciousness of self

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Basic trust vs. mistrust

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For Erikson, the first stage of infancy, during which children come to trust others as reliable and kind and to regard the world as safe, or else come to mistrust others as insensitive and hurtful and to regard the world as threatening

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Autonomy vs. shame and doubt

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For Erikson, the second stage of infancy, during which children develop a sense of themselves as competent to accomplish tasks or as not competent