Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
80 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Physical Development |
focuses on the body |
|
Cognitive Development |
focuses on how individual's think and that changes over one's life |
|
Personality Development |
focuses on the traits and characteristics that make each individual different and unique |
|
Social Development |
focuses on individual's interactions with others (or lack thereof) over a lifetime |
|
What is the most important debate in developmental psychology? |
The Nature vs. Nurture Debate |
|
Genotype |
the combo of genetic material in an organism but not outwardly seen |
|
Genes/DNA |
arranged in specific locations and specific orders along 46 chromosomes organized in 23 pairs. This is the genetic blueprint guiding cell activity for the rest of that individual's life No two people are alike barring the similarities of identical twins |
|
Monozygotic twins |
identical genetically. A fertilized egg splits in half forming two separate but identical entities |
|
Dizygotic twins |
two separate eggs fertilized by two separate sperm forming two separate individuals |
|
Dominant Trait |
one trait this is expressed when two competing traits are present Ex: eye color |
|
Recessive Trait |
a trait that is present in the organism but not expressed or seen Ex: hemophilia |
|
Phenotype |
observable traits seen in an organism |
|
Down Syndrome |
extra chromosome & mental retardation |
|
Fragile X Syndrome |
gene injured on x chromosome & mental retardation |
|
Sickle-cell Anemia |
blood disorder in 1/10th of African descent people |
|
Tay-Sachs Disease |
produces blindness and muscle degeneration. Die before school age. Jewish descent. |
|
Klinefelter's Syndrome |
Extra X chromosome. Problems with sexual characters. Treated with hormones |
|
Germinal Stage |
the shortest stage of development. Lasts two weeks Specialized cells form a protective layer around the zygote (later called the embryo) Methodical and rapid cell division Implantation to the wall of uterus |
|
Embryonic Period |
2-8 weeks following fertilization Only an inch long Head is about 50% of total length Significant growth in major organs and body systems happens during this stage |
|
Fetal Stage |
8 wks to birth - Rapid change in length (20x) Proportions change dramatically - Weight substantially increases. At birth, the average fetus is just over 7lbs - Organs begin to work. By 3 months it can swallow and urinate - By four months mother can feel baby move - Brain becomes more sophisticated - At end of fetal period, there are neural connections happening due to the brain hemispheres developing and growing - Brain waves can be detected to show sleep and wakefulness - Reading and listening to music affect the fetus |
|
Problems in Pregnancy : Infertility |
- 15% of couples are considered to have fertility problems if they haven't conceived after 12-18 months - In vitro fertilization : a procedure placing several fertilized eggs in a woman's uterus. Approximately 48% success rate in NE, varies/state |
|
Teratogens |
agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm |
|
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) |
- physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking - Symptoms include facial disproportions |
|
APGAR |
A: activity or muscle tone. How active muscle movement is right after birth is measured P: Pulse. Ideally, babies have a heart rate of higher than 100 beats/min G: Grimace or reflex irritability. Active babies sneeze and cough during suctioning of the mucus in their noses and mouths A: Appearance. Doctors look for normal skin color. Blue-gray or pale skin color is not a good sign R: Respiration. Babies should be crying and breathing regularly |
|
Neonate |
newborn child |
|
Infant Reflexes |
reflexes are unlearned, organized and involuntary responses that occur automatically in the presence of certain stimuli |
|
Rooting reflex |
turning the head in the direction of a source of stimulation Ex: a light touch |
|
Sucking & Swallowing Reflex |
reflexes to help ingest food right away |
|
Learning in a Newborn |
- Habituation is the decrease in the response to a stimulus that occurs after repeated presentations of the same stimulus - In other words, when babies are exposed to something, after a while they get bored with it |
|
Physical Development |
- Infants grow at a rapid pace during the first 2yrs - Birth weight has doubled at 5 months - By 1 yr, birth weight has tripled - By the end of the first year, an infant grows almost a foot and is about 30 inches tall - by age 2, they average 3ft |
|
Four Principles Governing Growth |
1. Cephalocaudal Principle: growth pattern starting with the head and upper body parts proceeding to the rest of the body 2. Proximodistal Principle: development from the center of the body outward. Trunk of body grows before the extremities (arms, legs) 3. Principle of Hierarchical Integration: simple skills develop separately and independently. These simple skills are integrated into more complicated ones later 4. Principle of the Independence of Systems: different body systems grow at different independent rates (Ex. sexual characteristics begin later at puberty) |
|
Babies and Neural Connections |
- at birth, most neurons in an infants' brain have relatively few connections with other neurons - By the age of two, an infant's brain will establish billions of new connections between neurons - Exposing infants to as much as possible help neural networks grow increasingly more complex - early years are critical (first 3 yrs) for optimal brain development - neural development & environment - babies are actually born with many more neurons that they need - any unused neurons die out making the nervous system more efficient |
|
Plasticity |
the degree to which a developing structure or behavior is modifiable due to experience |
|
Babies & Sleep Cycles |
- average sleep for newborn is 16-17 hours/day - sleep is in fits and starts rather than one long stretch; about 2 hours at a time - by about 16 wks they sleep approximately 6 hrs at a stretch. Total amount/day at this time is 15 hrs - REM (Rapid Eye Movement) : knowns as active sleep in babies. Not identical to REM in adults; also known as dreaming sleep |
|
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) |
a disorder where seemingly healthy infants die in their sleep - strikes 1/1,000 - scientists still don't understand why infants simply stop breathing - the recommendation today is that infants are placed on their backs and a pacifier given - SIDS has decreased dramatically with these guidelines |
|
Gross Motor Skills |
- Lifting head - Rolling over - Grasping - Crawling - Walking |
|
Fine Motor Skills |
- By 3 months infants try to reach for an object - by 11 months, infants can pick up small objects off the ground such as blocks or marbles - by age 2, they can hold a cup, bring to the lips and drink |
|
Motor Development |
Motor skills are just due to maturations (the brain initiating the time to learn), but is also dependent on motivation to learn. An infant must possess the desire to touch something in order to develop skills they need to crawl to it |
|
Norms |
timing is done on the average performance of a large sample of children. Every child learns at a slightly different rate |
|
Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale (NBAS) |
this scale is used to measure infants' neurological and behavioral responses to their environment - use caution when interpreting these instruments they are not all culturally diverse, most are taken from large Caucasian samples - development varies across cultural, racial and social groups |
|
Development of the Senses |
the processes underlying an infant's understanding of the world |
|
Sensation |
physical stimulation of the sense organs |
|
Perception |
mental processes of sorting out, interpreting, analyzing and integrating stimuli from the sense organs and brain |
|
Multimodal Perception |
the approach that considers how info that is collected by various sensory systems is integrated |
|
Visual Perception |
- newborns vision is better up close - by 6 months vision is typically 20/20 - at 14 wks binocular vision: ability to combine the images coming to each eye to see depth and motion - infants show preferences of certain colors, shapes curved over straight lines, 3D figures, and human faces to nonhuman faces |
|
Auditory Perception |
- infants hear from the womb. They know their mother's voice - infants are more sensitive to certain very high and low frequencies than adults and increases during the first 2 yrs of life - less sensitive to middle frequency sounds in infancy, but improves |
|
Smell & Taste |
- infants can detect smells and react like human - by 12-18 days old, many babies can detect their mother by their smell - most infants love sweet things and those that do tend to ingest sufficient nutrients - some taste preferences are based on what their mothers drank while they were in the womb |
|
Sensitivity to Pain |
- there was a myth that babies don't experience pain. This is absolutely not true! - pain produces distress in infants. Heartbeat increases, they start sweating, showing facial signals of distress, and intensity and tone of crying increase - Research on rats suggest that infants exposed to a lot of pain in infancy may rewire the nervous system giving way to lower pain tolerance in adulthoodCon |
|
Continuous Change |
change is gradual as in your height as you growDiscont |
|
Discontinuous Change |
change occurs in distinct steps or stages as in cognitive growth. There are qualitative changes in thinking as we grow which changes our behaviorC |
|
Critical Periods |
certain environment stimuli are necessary for normal development Language is one. The absence of certain stimuli result in irreversible effects on development |
|
Sensitive Periods |
like a critical period, but doesn't necessarily produce irreversible consequences |
|
Cognition |
all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, and remembering |
|
Jean Piaget |
- Proposed a theory consisting of four stages of cognitive development - cognitive development involves a succession of stages through which children progress from birth to adolescence - as humans move from one stage to another they begin to understand how the world changes |
|
Schemas |
-concepts or mental frameworks that people use to organize and interpret info - sometimes called schemes - a person's "picture of the world" |
|
Assimilation |
- interpreting a new experience within the context of one's existing schemas - the new experience is similar to other previous experiences |
|
Accommodation |
- interpreting a new experience by adapting or changing one's existing schemas - the new experience is so novel the person's schemata must be changed to accommodate it |
|
Sensorimotor Stage |
- Piaget's first stage of cognitive development - from birth to about age two - child gathers information about the world through senses and motor functions Big Event: child learns object permanence |
|
Preoperational Stage |
- Piaget's second stage of cognitive development - Ages 2 to 6/7 - Children can understand language but not logic Big Event: child's inability to take another person's point of view |
|
Concrete Operational Stage |
- Piaget's third stage of cognitive development - From ages 7-11 - child learns to think logically and understands conservation Big Event is Conservation |
|
Conservation |
an understanding that certain properties remain constant despite changes in their form- the properties can include mass, volume, and numbers |
|
Formal Operational Stage |
- Piaget's fourth and last stage of cognitive development - child can think logically and in the abstract - about age 12 on up Big Event is Abstract Thinking |
|
Abstract Thinking |
can solve hypothetical problems (What ifs) |
|
Assessing Piaget's Theory |
- he underestimated the child's ability at various ages - doesn't take into account culture and social differences - argued that the formal operational stage might not be the end-all and be-all of cognitive thinking - some studies have shown that even college students can't solve some formal operational problems while younger children can - Piaget even admitted that some people never reach formal operations - others have argued that there should be a stage beyond formal operations |
|
Memory during Infancy |
- infants do have memory capabilities; however the duration and accuracy are still questioned in research - it is thought that memories in infants are susceptible to interference from other, newer information, displacing or blocking out older info preventing remembering |
|
Infantile Amnesia |
lack of memory for experiences occurring prior to 3 years of age |
|
Memory & Intelligence in Infants |
The process by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved Encoding: (initial recording of information) Storage: (information saved for future use) Retrieval: (recovery of stored information) |
|
Language Learning |
before speaking happens, infants use pre-linguistic (pre-talking) communication, including the use of facial expressions, gestures and babbling Pattern: one to two words, to short sentences |
|
Phonology |
basic sounds of language, called phonemes, that can be combined to produce words and sentences Ex: "a" in "mat" and the "a" in "mate" |
|
Morphemes |
The smallest unit of language that has meaning. Some are complete words, while others add info necessary for interpreting a word, such as the endings "-s" for plural and "-ed" for past tense |
|
Semantics |
the rules that govern the meaning of words and sentences Ex: understanding the distinction between "Ellie was hit by a ball" and "A ball hit Ellie." |
|
Nativist Approach Theory |
Noam Chomsky theorized that humans have an innate capacity to learn language |
|
Learning Theory |
other researchers believe that language is a consequence of both environmental interactions/learning and innate factorsInteractionis |
|
Interactionist Approach |
language development is produced through a combination of genetically determined predispositions and environmental circumstances |
|
Infant-Directed Speech |
this is done across all cultures. Mothers talk with a falsetto or higher intonation. Tries to interpret what the infant is communicating and responds to it with words |
|
Holophrases |
one-word utterances that stand for a whole phrase who meaning depends on the particular context in which they are used Ex: "Ma" could mean, "I want to be picked up by mom." |
|
First Words |
- increase at rapid rate - 10-14 months = first word - 15 months = 10 words - 18 months = one-word stage ends - 16 to 24 months = language explosion equally 50 to 400 words - The Top 50 : The First Words Children Understand |
|
Telegraphic Speech |
speech in which words not critical to the message are left out Ex: "My shoes on." for "I put my shoes on." |
|
Boys |
more firm, clear, and direct responses (dog, bird, blanket) |
|
Girls |
- more diminutives (doggy, birdie, blankie) - more warm phrases |