CH15

Flashcards for reviewing key vocabulary from a developmental psychology lecture.

Maturation

Biologically based changes that follow an orderly sequence, each step setting the stage for the next step according to an age-related timetable.

Critical Periods

Periods of special sensitivity to specific types of learning and sensory stimulation that shape the capacity for future development.

Sensitive Periods

Times that are more important to subsequent development than others.

Cross-sectional studies

Compare groups of participants of different ages at a single time to provide a picture of age differences.

Longitudinal studies

Assess the same individuals over time, providing the opportunity to assess age changes.

Sequential studies

Minimise cohort effects by studying multiple cohorts longitudinally.

Prenatal Period

Before birth, also called the gestation period

Germinal Period

Approximately the first two weeks after conception, the fertilised egg becomes implanted in the uterus.

Embryonic Period

From the beginning of the third week to about the eighth week of gestation, is the most important period in the development of the central nervous system and of the organs

Fetal Period

From about nine weeks to birth, muscular development is rapid. By about 28 weeks, the fetus is capable of sustaining life on its own.

Teratogens

Environmental agents that harm the embryo or fetus.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

A serious condition affecting babies born to alcoholic mothers, babies are born with numerous physical deformities and a wide range of mental abnormalities.

Rooting Reflex

Helps ensure that the infant will get nourishment: when touched on the cheek, an infant will turn their head and open their mouth, ready to suck.

Sucking Reflex

Infants suck rhythmically in response to stimulation 3 to 4 centimetres inside their mouths.

Puberty

The time at which individuals become capable of reproduction.

Menopause

The cessation of the menstrual cycle.

Gerontologists

Scientists who study older people.

Ageism

Prejudice against older people.

Orienting Reflex

The tendency of humans, even from birth, to pay more attention to novel stimuli than to stimuli to which they have become habituated.

Intermodal Processing

The ability to associate sensations of an object from different senses or to match their own actions to behaviours they have observed visually.

Infantile Amnesia

Lack of explicit memory for events before age three or four.

Epistemology

Branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge.

Innate Knowledge

Kant's argument that some forms of knowledge do not come from observation but are innate.

Constructing Reality

Children develop knowledge by inventing, or constructing, reality out of their own experience, mixing what they observe with their own ideas about how the world works.

Assimilation

Interpreting actions or events in terms of one's present schemas — that is, fitting reality into one's existing ways of understanding.

Schema

An organised, repeatedly exercised pattern of thought or behaviour

Accommodation

The modification of schemas to fit reality.

Equilibration

Balancing assimilation and accommodation to adapt to the world.

Sensorimotor Stage

Infants think with their hands, mouths and senses, lasts from birth to about two years of age.

Object Permanence

The recognition that objects exist in time and space independent of the child's actions on, or observation of, them.

Preoperational Stage

Begins roughly around age two and lasts until ages five to seven. It is characterised by the emergence of symbolic thought — the ability to use arbitrary symbols, such as words, to represent concepts.

Centration

The tendency to focus, or centre, on one perceptually striking feature of an object without considering other features that might be relevant.

Operations

Internalised actions the individual can use to manipulate, transform and then return an object to its original state

Concrete Operational stage

Roughly ages seven to 12. At this point, children are capable of operating on, or mentally manipulating, internal representations of concrete objects in ways that are reversible.

Conservation

Basic properties of an object or situation remain stable even though superficial properties may be changed.

Formal Operations Stage

Begins about ages 12 to 15, when children start to think more abstractly. The formal operational stage is characterised by the ability to manipulate abstract as well as concrete objects, events and ideas mentally.

Transactional Model of Child Development

The way that children and their parents change their behaviour as a result of the transaction that occurs between them.

Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development

Emphasises the role of social interaction for the child as motivation for cognitive gains and learning; children collaborate and strive together on tasks to enhance their levels of understanding.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

That reflects a continuum of cognitive development, ranging from the child's individual capacity for problem solving to a more advanced and collaboratively based level of cognitive development.

Information-Processing Approach

Researchers have tried to track down the specific processes that account for cognitive development and have focused on continuous, quantitative changes.

Metacognition

People's understanding of the way they perform cognitive tasks such as remembering, learning or solving problems.

Metamemory

Knowledge about one's own memory and about strategies that can be used to help remember

Neo-Piagetian Theorists

Attempt to integrate Piagetian and information-processing theories.

Psychomotor Slowing

Increase in the time required for processing and acting on information

Fluid Intelligence

Refers to intellectual capacities used in many forms of information processing (assessed by measures of speed of processing, ability to solve analogies etc.).

Crystallised intelligence

Eefers to people's store of knowledge.

Intuition

Occurs outside of conscious awareness and involves the use of our prior knowledge of the way products work.

Dementia

A disorder marked by global disturbance of higher mental functions.

Alzheimer's Disease

A progressive and incurable illness that destroys neurons in the brain, severely impairing memory, reasoning, perception, language and behaviour.