Child Development: Cognitive, Language, and Social Development in Infancy

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering key concepts from Chapters 6 and 7, including Piaget's sensorimotor substages, information processing, language acquisition theories, emotional development, and attachment patterns.

Sensorimotor Stage

Piaget's first stage of cognitive development, spanning from birth to approximately 2 years of age, during which infants learn about the world through their senses and motor actions.

Reflexes Substage

The first substage of sensorimotor development (0–1 month), where infants understand and interact with the environment purely through inborn reflexes like sucking, grasping, and looking.

Primary Circular Reactions Substage

The second substage of sensorimotor development (1–4 months), where infants repeat pleasurable bodily actions centred on themselves by accident and then intentionally, such as sucking a thumb or kicking legs.

Secondary Circular Reactions Substage

The third substage of sensorimotor development (4–8 months), where attention shifts toward the outside world as infants intentionally repeat actions that produce interesting or pleasurable effects on objects, like shaking a rattle.

Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions Substage

The fourth substage of sensorimotor development (8–12 months), where actions become clearly intentional and goal-directed, infants combine existing schemas to solve simple problems, and begin to understand object permanence.

Tertiary Circular Reactions Substage

The fifth substage of sensorimotor development (12–18 months), where toddlers become creative explorers, using active trial-and-error to experiment with objects and manipulate their environment to see what happens.

Representational Thought Substage

The sixth substage of sensorimotor development (18–24 months), where children develop the ability to use mental symbols, words, and images to represent objects and events, allowing for deferred imitation and pretend play.

Encoding

The process by which information is initially recorded in a form usable to memory.

Storage

The aspect of information processing that refers to the placement of material into memory.

Retrieval

The process by which material in memory storage is located, brought into awareness, and used.

Automatization

The degree to which an activity requires attention, enabling infants and children to develop understanding of concepts, object categorizations, and statistical patterns.

Infantile Amnesia

The lack of memory for experiences that occurred prior to 3 years of age.

Language

A systematic, meaningful arrangement of symbols, which provides the basis for communication.

Prelinguistic Communication

Communication through sounds, facial expressions, gestures, imitation, and other nonlinguistic means.

Babbling

Making speechlike but meaningless sounds, which become culturally specific by 6 months of age.

Holophrases

One-word utterances that stand for a whole phrase, whose meaning depends on the particular context in which they are used.

Learning Theory Approach to Language Development

The perspective that language acquisition follows the basic laws of reinforcement and conditioning, where child language becomes more similar to adult speech through a process of shaping.

Nativist Approach to Language Development

The theory championed by Noam Chomsky stating that a genetically determined, innate mechanism (involving universal grammar and the language-acquisition device) directs language comprehension and production.

Interactionist Perspective on Language Development

The perspective stating that language development is produced through a combination of genetically determined predispositions and environmental circumstances.

Infant-Directed Speech

A type of speech directed toward infants, characterized by short, simple sentences, playing an important role in language acquisition.

Emergence of Emotional Expressions Timeline

The developmental timeline indicating when infant emotional expressions emerge, ranging from Interest, Distress, and Disgust at birth to Contempt and Guilt around 24 months.

Social Smile

Smiling in response to other individuals, which becomes more frequent than smiling directed toward nonhuman objects by 18 months of age.

Self-Awareness

Knowledge of oneself, which develops around 12 months of age and is assessed using tasks like the mirror-and-rouge test.

Empathy

An emotional response that corresponds to the feelings of another person.

Stranger Anxiety

The caution and wariness displayed by infants when encountering an unfamiliar person.

Separation Anxiety

The distress displayed by infants when a customary care provider departs.

John Bowlby's Attachment Theory

The view that attachment is based primarily on infants' needs for safety and security, representing a genetically determined motivation to avoid predators.

Harry Harlow's Attachment Research

Research demonstrating that infant monkeys preferred a warm cloth surrogate mother over a wire mother, establishing the importance of contact comfort.

Konrad Lorenz's Attachment Theory

The perspective that attachment is based on biologically determined factors, demonstrated through imprinting in animal behaviors.

Ainsworth Strange Situation

A standardized sequence of staged episodes used to illustrate the strength and pattern of attachment between a child and typically their mother.

Secure Attachment Pattern

An attachment pattern in which infants use the mother as a home base.

Avoidant Attachment Pattern

An attachment pattern in which infants do not seek proximity to the mother and, after she has left, typically do not seem distressed.

Ambivalent Attachment Pattern

An attachment pattern in which infants display a combination of positive and negative reactions to their mothers.

Disorganized-Disoriented Attachment Pattern

An attachment pattern in which infants show inconsistent, contradictory, and confused behavior.

Sequence of Infant-Caregiver Interaction

The process where infant signals prompt caregiver responses and caregiving actions, leading to infant recognition, play interactions, and mutual attachment development.