Module 5 – Growth, Development & Early Childhood

Vocabulary flashcards covering major concepts from Module 5 on early-childhood growth, development, cognition, language, socialization, parenting, and stress.

Growth rate (ages 2–6)

Children grow about 3 inches in height and gain 4–5 pounds in weight per year, losing some baby fat.

Early-childhood overweight/obesity

Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. children ages 2–5 meet criteria for overweight or obesity.

Caregiver influence on taste

Foods and drinks offered in early childhood shape lifelong taste preferences; limiting sugar helps ensure adequate nutrition.

Brain weight at age 6

The brain reaches about 95 % of its adult weight by six years old.

Myelination

Ongoing formation of the myelin sheath that speeds neural transmission during early childhood.

Synaptic pruning

Elimination of unused synapses, making neural processing faster and more efficient.

Prefrontal-cortex growth

Area gains in planning, complex thinking, and emotional control between ages 2-6.

Corpus callosum growth spurt

Rapid myelination of fibers connecting the hemispheres, improving coordination between them.

Gross motor skills

Abilities relying on large-muscle groups, such as running, jumping, or climbing.

Fine motor skills

Precise movements using small muscles, e.g., buttoning, drawing, or cutting.

Sexual development in childhood

Children may experience erections or vaginal lubrication and engage in self-stimulation for comfort or tension relief.

Appropriate-touch education

Caregivers teach when it is acceptable for others to see or touch children’s bodies.

Piaget’s preoperational stage

Ages 2–7; symbolic thought and language grow but logical reasoning is limited.

Egocentrism (Piaget)

Child assumes others see, think, and feel exactly as they do.

Precausal thinking

Using personal ideas rather than logic to explain cause-and-effect events.

Animism

Belief that inanimate objects possess lifelike qualities or feelings.

Artificialism

Assumption that natural events result from human actions or interventions.

Transductive reasoning

Faulty logic that links two unrelated events as cause and effect.

Syncretism (Piaget)

Assuming two simultaneous events are causally connected.

Centration

Focusing on one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others.

Conservation

Understanding that changing appearance does not alter quantity or mass; lacking in early childhood.

Irreversibility

Difficulty mentally undoing or reversing a sequence of events.

Transitive-inference limitation

Preoperational children struggle to deduce missing relations using previous knowledge.

Theory of mind

Awareness that people hold different beliefs, desires, emotions, and intentions; solidifies around age 4.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)

Condition marked by deficits in social communication and restricted behaviors; often linked to impaired theory of mind.

Sally-Anne test

False-belief task used to assess theory-of-mind understanding; often failed by children under 4 and some with ASD.

Fast-mapping

Rapid vocabulary expansion by linking new words to known concepts; grows vocab from ~200 to 10,000 words (ages 2-6).

Overregularization

Applying grammar rules too broadly (e.g., “goed” for went).

Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky’s range of tasks a child can do with guidance but not alone.

Scaffolding

Temporary support from a more skilled partner that helps a child master a task.

Private speech

Self-talk used to guide behavior; Piaget saw as egocentric, Vygotsky as problem-solving.

Word-gap research

Hart & Risley showed children from low-SES homes hear millions fewer words in first three years than higher-SES peers.

Self-concept

One’s idea of who they are, what they can do, and how they feel.

Looking-glass self

Cooley’s idea that we form self-views by interpreting how others perceive us.

"I" and "me"

The spontaneous, creative “I” versus the socialized, reflective “me.”

Generalized other

Sense of how the broader community views us, forming a multi-dimensional self.

Self-control

Ability to inhibit responses and delay gratification.

Marshmallow test

Classic task assessing delayed gratification in young children.

Anal stage

Freud’s stage 2 (18 m–3 y); pleasure centers on defecation, influencing potty-training battles.

Phallic stage

Freud’s stage 3; child becomes attracted to opposite-sex parent and identifies with same-sex parent.

Oedipus complex

Boy’s desire for mother and rivalry with father during the phallic stage.

Electra complex

Girl’s parallel attraction to father and rivalry with mother.

Introjection

Internalizing others’ values to learn right from wrong (part of phallic stage).

Unoccupied play

Child appears not to play but makes random movements; earliest play form.

Solitary play

Playing alone, unaware of or uninterested in others nearby.

Onlooker play

Watching other children play without joining in.

Parallel play

Playing beside, but not with, another child; activities are similar but separate.

Associative play

Children interact, share toys, but do not organize play toward a common goal.

Cooperative play

Organized play with roles and shared goals (e.g., building together).

Erikson’s initiative vs. guilt

Stage beginning around age 3; children seek to plan and carry out activities while avoiding excessive guilt.

Gender identity

Personal sense of being male or female, emerging in preschool years.

Gender constancy

Understanding that gender remains the same despite appearance changes; achieved later in early childhood.

Gender stereotyping

Overgeneralizing traits or behaviors as exclusively male or female.

Authoritarian parenting

High demands, low responsiveness; obedience expected without discussion.

Permissive parenting

Low demands, high responsiveness; parent acts more like a friend than authority.

Authoritative parenting

High demands and high responsiveness; strict yet warm and open to negotiation—linked to best outcomes.

Uninvolved parenting

Low demands and low responsiveness; parent disengaged from child’s life.

Martyr parent (Lemasters & Defrain)

Parent who sacrifices everything for child, possibly fostering guilt or dependency.

Positive reinforcement

Adding a pleasant stimulus to increase behavior frequency.

Negative reinforcement

Removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase behavior frequency.

Positive punishment

Adding an aversive stimulus to decrease behavior frequency.

Negative punishment

Removing a desired stimulus to decrease behavior frequency.

Positive stress (eustress)

Brief, mild-to-moderate stress that promotes resilience when buffered by caring adults.

Tolerable stress

Intense but short-lived stress that can be overcome with support.

Toxic stress

Chronic, overwhelming stress without adequate support, leading to long-term harm.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Traumatic events such as abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction that raise later health and behavioral risks.

Food insecurity

Limited or uncertain access to sufficient, nutritious food for healthy living.