Chapters 7–9: Child Development (Early & Middle Childhood)

A comprehensive deck of vocabulary flashcards covering key developmental psychology concepts from early and middle childhood, including physical, cognitive, social, and academic domains across Chapters 7, 8, and 9.

Gross motor skills

Motor skills involving large muscle groups used for activities such as running, jumping, and hopping.

Fine motor skills

Motor skills involving small hand muscles used for precise tasks such as cutting with scissors, holding a pencil, and threading beads.

Lateralization

The specialization of the left and right cerebral hemispheres in handling distinct mental functions.

Corpus callosum

The neural structure connecting the left and right cerebral hemispheres that grows and myelinizes faster during ages 2 to 6 than at any other developmental period.

Reticular formation

A brain structure that regulates attention and concentration, whose heavy myelination in middle childhood dramatically enhances attention control.

Hippocampus

A brain structure that transfers information into long-term memory; its progressive myelination drives significant memory gains in preschool children.

Infantile amnesia

The inability of adults and older children to remember events from the first 3 years of life, caused by immature connections between the hippocampus and the cortex.

SBNRT

A 5-step pediatrician sleep framework consisting of Schedule (consistent daytime routine), Bedtime (fixed 8 to 10 hours before waking), Naps (cutting late naps if nighttime sleep is delayed), Routine (a calming 20 to 30 minute activity), and Toy (a transitional comfort object).

Food aversions

The sudden refusal of previously accepted foods (such as green vegetables), a developmental phase that peaks naturally during the preschool years.

Child maltreatment

Any caregiver act or failure to act that causes harm or creates a serious risk of harm to a child.

Child abuse

Trauma inflicted on a child physically, sexually, or emotionally.

Child neglect

A caregiver's failure to provide essential physical or emotional necessities; it represents the most common form of child maltreatment.

SCAF model

A 4-part risk assessment framework for child abuse evaluating Sociocultural factors, Characteristics of the child, Abuser characteristics, and Family stresses.

Semiotic function

The mental capacity to understand that one object, word, or behavior can represent another (for example, pretending a broom is a horse).

Preoperational stage

Piaget's second developmental stage (ages 2 to 6) characterized by an explosive expansion of symbolic representation in language, pretend play, and internal thought alongside logical limitations.

Egocentrism

Looking at the world entirely from one's own physical or mental perspective and assuming all other individuals experience reality identically.

Centration

A preschooler's cognitive tendency to focus their visual and mental attention on only one single variable of an object or situation at a time.

Animism

The belief that non-living, self-moving objects are alive and have feelings, which stems from centration on movement while ignoring biological characteristics.

Conservation

The cognitive understanding that an object's physical quantity remains unchanged even when its outward visual appearance is altered or reshaped.

Irreversibility

The cognitive limitation in preoperational logic where a child cannot mentally trace a physical transformation backward step-by-step to reconstruct the original state.

Flavell’s Level 1 perspective-taking

The developmental milestone achieved between ages 2 and 3 where a child realizes that other individuals have different physical and emotional experiences from their own.

Flavell’s Level 2 perspective-taking

The developmental milestone unlocked between ages 4 and 5 involving complex spatial rules to determine exactly what another person sees from their specific physical location.

Theory of Mind

An integrated cognitive understanding of how the human mind works and how internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires, and knowledge) direct human actions.

False-belief principle

A Theory of Mind milestone typically mastered at age 4 that enables a child to recognize that another person can hold incorrect information and act upon a mistaken belief.

Short-Term Storage Space (STSS)

Robbie Case's Neo-Piagetian term for working memory capacity, which constrains the number of cognitive schemes a child can hold simultaneously.

Operational efficiency

The speed and ease with which a child executes mental operations; gains in operational efficiency free up Short-Term Storage Space for complex reasoning.

Cognitive scripts

Automated mental blueprints for repeated daily routines (such as brushing teeth) that reduce cognitive load and conserve working memory.

Metamemory

Knowledge about and intentional control over one's own memory processes and capacities.

Metacognition

Knowledge about and executive control over one's own internal thought processes and cognitive strategies.

Private speech

Vygotsky's third stage of speech development characterized by overt self-talk that guides problem-solving and self-regulation before being internalized.

Fast-mapping

The process of rapidly linking a newly heard word to a categorical concept by forming an immediate hypothesis regarding its meaning and testing it in conversation.

Grammar explosion

The developmental phase between ages 2 and 6 during which children's speech transitions rapidly from short two-word phrases into complex, grammatically structured sentences.

Overregularization

The speech error peaking between ages 3 and 4 where a child applies standard grammatical rules to irregular words (such as saying 'goed' or 'teeths').

Phonological awareness

An explicit understanding of the sound patterns of spoken language and the system for mapping speech sounds to written letters.

Invented spelling

A preschooler's attempt to write words using phonetic letter-sound guesses (such as writing 'bvr' for beaver), which actively fosters early literacy and phonological awareness.

Stanford-Binet IQ formula

Lewis Terman's formula for calculating the Intelligence Quotient: $\text{IQ} = \left(\frac{\text{Mental Age}}{\text{Chronological Age}}\right) \times 100$.

Reaction Range

The genetically established boundary of 20 to 25 IQ points within which environmental stimulation determines an individual's final achieved intelligence score.

The Flynn Effect

The historic, generational rise in average standardized IQ scores across industrialized nations, driven by improvements in nutrition, expanded media exposure, and universal literacy.

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

Erikson's psychosocial stage from ages 1 to 3 where developing physical mobility leads children to balance their desire for independence against environmental boundaries.

Initiative vs. Guilt

Erikson's psychosocial stage from ages 3 to 6 where emerging cognitive planning prompts children to take goal-directed action while learning to manage an internal conscience.

Person perception

The emerging social-cognitive capacity to evaluate and categorize others into stable traits (such as labeling peers as 'nice' or 'mean' by ages 4 to 5).

Social Domain Theory

A theoretical model proposing that children categorize rules into three distinct cognitive frameworks: universal moral rules, arbitrary social conventions, and personal psychological choices.

Moral rules

Universal, non-negotiable principles designed to ensure justice, uphold fairness, and prevent physical or emotional harm (such as prohibitions against hitting or stealing).

Social conventions

Arbitrary, culturally established customs and regulations created to preserve social predictability and order (such as table manners or driving on a designated side).

Effortful control

The self-regulatory capacity to voluntarily inhibit an immediate impulse and control emotional states in order to meet situational demands.

Categorical Self

The component of early self-concept built upon observable, concrete attributes such as age, gender, size, and hair color.

Emotional Self

The component of self-concept reflecting a child's emerging ability to monitor, regulate, and alter their internal emotional states and behavioral expressions.

Social Self

The component of self-concept rooted in a child's understanding of their defined roles within interpersonal relationships, play routines, and family networks.

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD)

A diagnostic condition in which preschoolers display frequent, severe rage tantrums and destructive, aggressive behaviors far beyond normative developmental temper tantrums.

Empathy

The cognitive and emotional ability to accurately identify, match, and share another individual's affective state.

Sympathy

A feeling of concern, compassion, or sorrow for another individual's distress without necessarily mirroring their specific emotional experience.

Gender identity

The initial phase of Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental model (around age 2) in which a child correctly categorizes themselves as a boy or a girl.

Gender stability

The second phase of Kohlberg's model (around age 4) where a child understands that gender remains constant over a lifetime, though external alterations in clothing or hair can still cause confusion.

Gender constancy

The final phase of Kohlberg's model (ages 5 to 6) where a child realizes that biological sex is fixed and permanent, regardless of external appearance, dress, or chosen activities.

Gender Schema Theory

A cognitive framework stating that children develop an organized mental lens regarding gender around ages 2 to 3, which actively filters perceptions and shapes toy and peer preferences.

Enabling communication style

A typically female-typed interpersonal communication style characterized by mutual agreement, supportive statements, emotional elaboration, and polite suggestions designed to sustain social harmony.

Constricting communication style

A typically male-typed interpersonal communication style characterized by dominance, interruptions, boasting, direct contradictions, and competitive self-display.

Authoritative parenting

A parenting style high in warmth, maturity demands, firm rule enforcement, and open communication that consistently predicts optimal cognitive, academic, and social competence.

Authoritarian parenting

A parenting style high in control and behavioral demands but low in warmth and bidirectional communication, frequently leading to lower self-esteem and elevated peer aggression.

Permissive parenting

A parenting style high in warmth and affection but lacking in maturity demands, structure, and consistent discipline, which often leads to poor self-regulation in children.

Uninvolved parenting

A parenting style characterized by low warmth and low behavioral demands, placing children at the highest risk for insecure attachment, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior.

Inductive discipline

A non-punitive disciplinary method where parents explain the logical reasons behind rules and highlight the effects of a child's actions on other people, fostering perspective-taking.

Premack Principle

A behavioral management technique where a high-probability, preferred activity is offered as positive reinforcement for completing a low-probability, less-preferred task.

Solitary play

A form of play identified by Mildred Parten where a child plays entirely alone with toys different from those used by nearby children, without attempting interaction.

Onlooker play

A form of play where a child watches other children play and may talk or ask questions, but does not enter into the physical activity directly.

Parallel play

A play pattern emerging between 12 and 18 months where children play alongside each other using similar materials without interacting or coordinating goals.

Associative play

A play pattern emerging after 18 months where children engage in separate activities while engaging in brief, spontaneous social exchanges such as sharing toys or chasing one another.

Cooperative play

A play pattern emerging around age 3 where children collaborate, assign roles, and follow shared guidelines to achieve a unified constructive or symbolic objective.

Instrumental aggression

Aggressive behavior aimed at obtaining, securing, or damaging a desired physical object, space, or privilege.

Hostile aggression

Aggressive behavior intentionally directed at inflicting physical injury or psychological pain upon another person.

Hostile attribution bias

A cognitive bias commonly seen in aggressive children where ambiguous or accidental occurrences (such as being bumped) are interpreted as intentional hostile threats requiring retaliation.

Prosocial behavior

Voluntary, intentional behavior intended to benefit, help, or comfort another person without external obligation (altruism).

Adrenarche

A developmental period of increased adrenal hormone production occurring around age 7 or 8 ('mini-puberty') that primes the brain and body for subsequent puberty.

Selective attention

The cognitive capacity to concentrate attention strictly on task-relevant elements while actively screening out irrelevant environmental distractions.

Relative right-left orientation

The spatial ability mastered around age 8 to accurately determine left and right orientation from another individual's perspective across physical space.

Spatial cognition

The cognitive ability to predict, infer rules from, and mentally track the movement of objects through two- and three-dimensional space.

Asthma

A chronic pediatric respiratory illness marked by sudden attacks of airway inflammation, bronchial spasm, and excessive mucus production, diagnosed in 9% of U.S. school-age children.

Concrete operational stage

Piaget's third developmental stage (ages 6 to 12) during which children master internalized, reversible logical schemes to solve tangible, real-world physical problems.

Decentration

The cognitive ability in concrete operations to coordinate and evaluate multiple variables or dimensions of a physical situation simultaneously.

Reversibility

The ability to mentally trace a physical or operational sequence backward to its starting condition, identified by Piaget as the foundational mechanism of concrete operational thought.

Horizontal décalage

Piaget's term describing the uneven, sequential acquisition of conservation operations across different physical domains (such as mass, volume, and area) over middle childhood.

Class inclusion

The logical understanding that subordinate categories are entirely embedded within broader superordinate classes (for instance, recognizing that bananas are simultaneously fruit and food).

Inductive logic

A reasoning style moving from specific observed instances to general principles, which is fully accessible and mastered during the concrete operational stage.

Deductive logic

A reasoning style moving from general abstract premises to specific logical predictions, which concrete operational children struggle with because it requires hypothetical thinking.

Automaticity

The ability to recall information or execute cognitive procedures smoothly from long-term memory without consuming conscious short-term working memory capacity.

Executive processes

High-level cognitive skills that allow a child to devise, monitor, evaluate, and adjust memory and problem-solving strategies to accomplish goals.

Literacy

The foundational academic ability to read and write proficiently, serving as the primary curricular objective in elementary education between ages 6 and 12.

Systematic and explicit phonics instruction

A structured, evidence-based approach to literacy education that intentionally teaches precise letter-sound relationships and phonemic decoding rules.

Two-Way Immersion

An educational model integrating native English speakers and English Learners in one classroom where instruction is split equally between English and a target partner language.

Spearman’s g factor

Charles Spearman's concept of general intelligence ($g$)—a singular underlying mental capacity that influences performance across diverse cognitive tasks.

Triarchic Theory of Successful Intelligence

Robert Sternberg's intelligence model comprising three interdependent elements: contextual (practical), experiential (creative), and componential (analytical) abilities.

Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman's construct encompassing self-awareness, emotional control, persistence, empathy, and social proficiency.

Pygmalion Effect

Robert Rosenthal's self-fulfilling prophecy phenomenon wherein an instructor's preconceived expectations regarding a student's cognitive ability alter teaching behavior to match that expectation.

Stereotype threat

A psychological state of anxiety experienced when an individual risks confirming a negative societal stereotype about their social group, leading to lowered cognitive performance.

Computational fluency

The capacity to generate correct solutions to fundamental arithmetic problems swiftly and accurately without relying on physical or conscious counting strategies.

Response to Intervention (RTI)

A 3-tiered educational identification policy requiring schools to provide evidence of a child's failure to progress under evidence-based interventions before classifying a learning disability.

Dyslexia

A specific learning disability characterized by severe challenges in phonological decoding, word reading fluency, and sound-to-letter translation.

Dyscalculia

A specific learning disability marked by persistent difficulty comprehending numerical values, learning mathematical calculations, and grasping quantitative concepts.

Dysgraphia

A specific learning disability that interferes with physical handwriting, spelling, and fine motor written expression.

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

A neurodevelopmental disorder marked by persistent patterns of severe inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that impair academic and behavioral functioning.