Child Development: Infancy and Early Childhood Concepts

Vocabulary flashcards covering core terms, developmental theories, cognitive milestones, attachment classifications, parenting styles, and play stages from the lecture notes.

Apoptosis

Programmed cell death; a normal, genetically regulated process in brain development where surplus neurons and brain cells die off to make space for more efficient neural connections.

Experience-expectant plasticity

The brain's young, developing organization that depends on ordinary experiences (e.g., seeing faces, hearing language, touching objects) that every human infant is expected to encounter to wire correctly.

Experience-dependent plasticity

The brain's modification and growth of neural structures resulting from specific, individual learning experiences throughout life (e.g., learning to play an instrument or read a specific alphabet).

Circular reactions

In Piaget’s theory, a stumble-upon process where an infant tries to repeat a chance event caused by their own motor activity, leading to the development of new schemes (e.g., repeatedly dropping a toy to see what happens).

Object permanence

The understanding that objects, people, and events continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched (typically develops during the sensorimotor stage).

Recall memory

The ability to generate mental images or retrieve information about an absent stimulus or past event without perceptual cues (more difficult, develops later).

Recognition memory

The ability to notice whether a stimulus is identical or similar to one previously experienced; noticing when a cue matches a piece of stored information (easier, appears earlier in infancy).

Mental representations

Internal depictions of information that the mind can manipulate, such as images of objects or concepts/words, allowing infants and toddlers to solve problems mentally without trial and error.

Infantile amnesia

The inability of older children and adults to retrieve episodic memories (events) from the first few years of life (typically before age 2–3).

Joint attention

The state in which two people (an infant and an adult) gaze at the same object or event while monitoring each other's attention, crucial for language and social learning.

Stranger anxiety

The fear and wariness of unfamiliar adults displayed by infants, which typically emerges around 6 months of age.

Separation anxiety

Distress and crying experienced by infants and toddlers when a primary caregiver leaves them; peaks around 12–15 months.

Social referencing

Actively seeking out emotional information or cues from a trusted person (like a parent) in an uncertain or ambiguous situation to decide how to react.

Attachment

A strong, affectionate, reciprocal emotional bond between an infant and a primary caregiver that provides a sense of security.

Temperament

Early-appearing, stable individual differences in emotional, motor, and attentional reactivity and self-regulation.

Goodness of fit

The compatibility or match between a child's temperament and environmental demands/parenting styles; a good fit promotes healthy adjustment, while a poor fit can lead to adjustment difficulties.

Parasomnias

A category of sleep disorders that involve abnormal movements, behaviors, emotions, perceptions, or dreams while falling asleep, sleeping, between sleep stages, or during arousal (e.g., sleepwalking, night terrors).

Night terrors

A severe parasomnia characterized by sudden panic, screaming, and intense physiological arousal during deep (slow-wave) non-REM sleep; the child usually has no memory of it the next day.

Gross motor skills

Control over large muscle groups involved in movement and posture (e.g., crawling, walking, jumping).

Fine motor skills

Control over small, precise movements, especially involving the hands and fingers (e.g., reaching, grasping, writing).

Scale error

A serious attempt by a young toddler (usually 18–30 months) to perform an action on a miniature object that is impossible given the scale difference (e.g., trying to slide down a toy slide or get into a toy car).

Dual representations

The ability to view a symbolic object (like a map, model, or photo) as both an object in its own right and as a symbol representing something else.

Memory scripts

General descriptions in memory of what occurs and when it occurs in a particular familiar event or routine (e.g., what happens during bedtime or going to a restaurant).

Theory of mind

An understanding of human mental processes—that other people have thoughts, beliefs, desires, emotions, and intentions that are different from one's own.

Animistic thinking

The belief of preoperational children that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, feelings, intentions, and consciousness (e.g., "The sun is sleeping tonight").

Self-esteem

The judgmental and evaluative aspect of the self-concept; how much value, worth, or confidence a person places on themselves.

Emotional display rules

Culturally specific guidelines and norms regarding when, where, and how it is appropriate to express various emotions.

Instrumental aggression

Aggression motivated by the desire to obtain an explicit goal, object, privilege, or space, without the primary intent to harm someone (e.g., pushing someone to get a toy).

Hostile aggression

Aggression intended to harm another person, categorized into overt aggression and relational aggression.

Overt aggression

Physical or verbal harm that openly threatens or damages others (e.g., hitting, name-calling).

Relational aggression

Behavior that damages another's peer relationships, social status, or inclusion (e.g., social exclusion, spreading rumors, manipulation).

Prosocial behavior

Voluntary actions intended to benefit another person, such as sharing, comforting, helping, or cooperating, driven by empathy.

Delay of gratification

The ability to resist an immediate reward for a more valuable or larger reward later; a key milestone in emotional self-regulation.

Gender typing

Any association of objects, activities, roles, or traits with biological sex in ways that conform to cultural stereotypes of gender.

Gender identity

An individual's deeply felt, internal sense of being male, female, or another gender.

Gender constancy

A cognitive understanding (usually developed in early childhood, around ages 3–6) that biological sex remains constant and unchanging even if clothing, hair, or play activities change.

Morality of constraint (Piaget)

Piaget’s first stage of moral development (roughly ages 4–7) where children view rules as absolute, sacred, unchangeable edicts created by authority figures, and judge wrongness strictly by the amount of damage done rather than intent.

Autonomous reality / morality of cooperation (Piaget)

Piaget’s later stage of moral development (around age 10+) where children view rules as flexible, socially agreed-upon principles that can be modified, and where intentions matter more than outcomes.

Apgar Scale

A quick assessment method used to evaluate a newborn baby's physical condition right after birth (at 1 minute and 5 minutes after birth), checking Appearance (skin color), Pulse (heart rate), Grimace (reflex irritability), Activity (muscle tone), and Respiratory effort (breathing), with scores ranging from 0 to 10 (7+ is healthy).

Sensorimotor stage

Piaget’s first stage of cognitive development (birth to age 2), where infants and toddlers "think" with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment, transitioning from simple reflexes to symbolic thought and mastering object permanence.

Information processing theory (infancy/toddlerhood)

A cognitive framework that views the human mind like a computer, focusing on how information flows through the cognitive system via attention, working memory (short-term storage and manipulation), executive function (inhibitory control, planning), and long-term memory.

Harry Harlow

Researcher who demonstrated through monkey experiments that "contact comfort" (warmth, physical security) is more critical for attachment than mere food/nourishment.

John Bowlby

Formulated ethological attachment theory, proposing that infants are biologically predisposed to seek proximity to a caregiver as an evolutionary survival mechanism.

Mary Ainsworth

Developmental psychologist who designed the Strange Situation procedure and identified individual differences in attachment security.

Strange Situation

A laboratory procedure used to assess attachment security by exposing a toddler to a series of separations and reunions with a parent and an unfamiliar stranger.

Secure Attachment

An attachment category where the infant uses the parent as a secure base; may cry when separated, but is easily comforted upon reunion.

Insecure-Avoidant Attachment

An attachment category characterized by being unresponsive to the parent when present, and being slow to greet or actively avoiding the parent upon reunion.

Insecure-Resistant (Ambivalent) Attachment

An attachment pattern characterized by clinginess before separation, and angry, combative, or inconsolably distressed behavior upon reunion.

Insecure-Disorganized/Disoriented Attachment

An attachment pattern reflecting the greatest insecurity, characterized by confused, contradictory behaviors (e.g., approaching the parent while looking away).

Preoperational stage

Piaget’s second stage of cognitive development (ages 2 to 7), marked by a rapid leap in mental representation, but limited by egocentrism, an inability to conserve, centration, and irreversibility.

Egocentrism

The inability to distinguish other people's symbolic viewpoints from one's own (e.g., assuming everyone sees what they see).

Conservation

The understanding that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same even when their outward appearance changes (e.g., liquid volume remaining constant despite container shape).

Centration

A limitation of logical thought in the preoperational stage characterized by focusing on one aspect of a situation while neglecting others.

Irreversibility

A limitation of logical thought in the preoperational stage characterized by an inability to mentally reverse a series of steps.

Authoritative parenting

A parenting style characterized by high warmth and high control/demandingness; sets clear rules, encourages open communication, and uses reason, leading to the best outcomes.

Authoritarian parenting

A parenting style characterized by low warmth and high control; strict, obedience-oriented, punitive, and offers little explanation.

Permissive parenting

A parenting style characterized by high warmth and low control; overly indulgent with few demands or boundaries.

Uninvolved (Neglectful) parenting

A parenting style characterized by low warmth and low control; detached and indifferent, meeting basic physical needs but little else.

Unoccupied play

A type of social development play where the child is not playing, but just observing or making random movements.

Solitary play

A type of social development play where the child plays alone, independently of others.

Onlooker play

A type of social development play where the child watches other children play without joining in.

Parallel play

A type of social development play where children play side-by-side with similar toys, but without trying to influence or interact with each other.

Associative play

A type of social development play where children interact by exchanging toys or conversing, but are not working toward a shared common goal.

Cooperative play

A type of social development play where children play together cooperatively, organizing a common activity or working toward a shared goal (e.g., dramatic play, building a collective project).