Child and Adolescent Development: Early Childhood Through Adolescence

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering physical, cognitive, and social development across Early Childhood (Chapter 4), Middle and Late Childhood (Chapter 5), and Adolescence (Chapter 6).

Growth Hormone

A pituitary hormone that is necessary for the development of most body tissues.

Thyroid-stimulating Hormone

A hormone released by the pituitary gland that prompts the secretion of thyroxine, which is necessary for brain development and for growth hormone to have its full impact on body size.

Corpus Callosum

A thick bundle of nerve fibers that connects the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

Lateralization

The developmental process by which specific brain functions become localized more in one hemisphere than the other.

Cerebellum

A brain structure that aids in balance and the control of body movement.

Reticular Formation

A brain structure that maintains alertness and consciousness.

Hippocampus

A brain structure that plays a vital role in memory.

Preoperational Stage

Piaget's second cognitive stage, lasting from ages $2$ to $7$, during which children show increased ability to use symbols but exhibit thinking limited by egocentrism, animism, and centration.

Egocentrism (Piaget)

In Piaget's theory, the inability of young children to distinguish between their own perspective and someone else's perspective.

Animism

The preoperational belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities.

Centration

The tendency in young children to focus attention on one characteristic of an object or situation while excluding all others.

Inhibition

The ability to inhibit impulses, which is directly related to improvements in attention during the preschool period.

Scripts

Broad representations stored in memory of familiar events and the specific order in which they occur.

Autobiographical Memory

Memory of particular events from one's own life, which begins to emerge during the preschool years.

Zone of Proximal Development

Vygotsky's term for the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what they can accomplish with assistance.

Scaffolding

A teaching approach in which the instructor matches the amount and type of assistance to the learner's current needs.

Private Speech

Self-directed comments used by children to regulate and guide their own behavior.

Fast Mapping

The cognitive process whereby preschoolers rapidly connect new words to their meanings after only a brief initial encounter.

Grammatical Morphemes

The minimal units of meaning in language that children learn general rules for as they advance past telegraphic speech.

Montessori Education

A type of child-centered program that uses materials designed to promote exploration, emphasizes child-chosen activities, and places equal emphasis on academic and social development.

Head Start

An early intervention program that typically provides children with $1$ or $2$ years of preschool along with nutritional and health services.

Collectivistic Orientation

A cultural perspective that promotes interdependence and communal connection over individual autonomy.

Individualistic Orientation

A cultural perspective that emphasizes personal identity and the uniqueness of the individual.

Gender Typing

Any association of objects, activities, roles, or traits with one biological sex or the other.

Gender Schemas

Cognitive frameworks developed during the preschool years that organize information relevant to gender.

Gender Stability

The understanding that gender remains stable and consistent over time.

Gender Consistency

The realization that a person's biological gender does not change across different situations or external transformations.

Parallel Play

A form of play where children play alone but remain interested in and observant of what others are doing.

Associative Play

A form of play where children engage in similar activities and share or offer each other toys.

Cooperative Play

A sophisticated style of social play in which children organize their activities around a shared theme and adopt specific roles.

Authoritarian Parenting

A style of child-rearing characterized by high parental control, little warmth, and minimal verbal give-and-take.

Authoritative Parenting

A parenting style that balances a fair degree of parental control with warmth, explaining rules and encouraging two-way discussion.

Permissive/Indulgent Parenting

A child-rearing approach marked by high warmth but little parental control, where parents punish infrequently.

Uninvolved/Neglectful Parenting

A parenting style characterized by an absence of both warmth and control, providing for basic physical needs but little else.

Cycle of Violence Hypothesis

The hypothesis proposing that the abuse and neglect individuals suffer as children predispose them as adults to abuse and neglect their own children.

Moral Realism

Piaget's second stage of moral development where children believe rules are unalterable dictates created by adults that must be strictly obeyed.

Immanent Justice

The belief held by children in the moral realism stage that breaking a rule automatically and inevitably leads to punishment.

Moral Relativism

Piaget's third stage of moral development in which children understand that rules are arbitrary social agreements created to help people get along.

Instrumental Aggression

Aggressive behavior used as a means to achieve an explicit, concrete goal.

Hostile Aggression

Aggressive behavior intended exclusively to intimidate, harass, or humiliate another person.

Relational Aggression

A form of non-physical aggression aimed at damaging or undermining social relationships and peer acceptance.

Obesity (Middle Childhood)

A physical condition defined as body weight that is more than $20\%$ above the average for a person of a given age and height.

Learning Disabilities

Conditions characterized by significant difficulty mastering an academic subject in individuals with normal intelligence and in the absence of other explanatory conditions.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

A behavioral disorder involving persistent patterns of inattention, impulsivity, and excessive motor activity, diagnosed more frequently in boys than girls.

Concrete Operational Stage

Piaget's third cognitive stage, lasting from ages $7$ to $11$, where children begin to use mental operations, strategies, and rules, though thinking remains limited to the tangible and real.

Working Memory

The active mental workspace that serves as the site of ongoing cognitive activity and information processing.

Metamemory

An understanding and conscious awareness of the mental processes that underlie memory.

Rehearsal

A memory strategy that involves repeating information to oneself to maintain it in working memory.

Elaboration

A memory strategy that involves embellishing information with additional associations to make it more memorable.

Phonological Awareness

The ability to hear, isolate, and manipulate the distinctive sounds of letters.

Dyslexia

A reading disability characterized by problems such as letter reversals, slow reading speed, and reduced comprehension.

Fluid Intelligence

The form of intelligence that reflects information processing capabilities, reasoning, and memory capacity.

Crystallized Intelligence

The store of accumulated knowledge, facts, and verbal skills acquired through experience and schooling.

Inclusive Classrooms

Educational settings in which students with learning difficulties learn alongside typical students for all or part of the school day.

Giftedness

A designation traditionally given to individuals who achieve IQ scores of $130$ or higher.

Stereotype Threats

The phenomenon whereby a person's knowledge of negative group stereotypes induces anxiety, leading to reduced academic performance.

Social Comparison

The evaluation of one's own behavior, abilities, and expertise by comparing them against those of others.

Downward Social Comparisons

Comparing oneself to others who are less competent or successful, often used to bolster or preserve self-esteem.

Preconventional Moral Reasoning

Kohlberg's lowest level of moral reasoning, in which moral judgments are based primarily on external rewards and punishments.

Conventional Moral Reasoning

Kohlberg's middle level of moral reasoning, centered on following societal rules and obtaining the approval of others.

Postconventional Moral Reasoning

Kohlberg's highest level of moral reasoning, where ethical choices are guided by abstract moral principles rather than rigid rules.

Peer Acceptance

A measure of likeability that reflects the extent to which a child is viewed by age-mates as a worthy social partner.

Co-Regulation

A transitional period in middle childhood during which parents and children jointly control the child's behavior.

Self-Care Children

Children who let themselves into their homes after school and wait alone until their caregivers return from work.

Blended Families

Family units consisting of a biological parent, a stepparent, and children.

Adolescence

The developmental stage of human life that lies between childhood and adulthood.

Puberty

The developmental period during which sexual organs mature, triggered when the pituitary gland signals other glands to begin producing sex hormones.

Primary Sex Characteristics

Physical organs directly involved in biological reproduction, such as the testes, scrotum, ovaries, and uterus.

Secondary Sex Characteristics

Outward physical signs of physiological maturity that are not linked directly to reproductive organs, such as breast development and pubic hair.

Menarche

The occurrence of a female's first menstruation, marking a major milestone in pubertal development.

Spermarche

A male's first ejaculation of semen-containing ejaculate.

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder marked by an intentional refusal to eat and an irrational fear of being overweight.

Bulimia Nervosa

An eating disorder characterized by cycles of alternating between binge eating and compensatory purging.

Prefrontal Cortex (PFC)

The region of the frontal lobe that undergoes profound changes during adolescence, allowing individuals to think, evaluate, and make complex judgments.

Formal Operations Stage

Piaget's fourth cognitive stage, spanning ages $11$ to $15$, during which individuals gain the ability to think hypothetically and reason deductively.

Adolescent Egocentrism

A state of self-absorption characteristic of adolescence that distorts views of how others perceive oneself.

Imaginary Audience

An adolescent belief that other people are constantly watching, evaluating, and focusing on them.

Personal Fable

The adolescent conviction that one's personal experiences, emotions, and feelings are completely unique and shared by no one else.

Binge Drinking

The consumption of $5$ or more drinks in one sitting for men, or $4$ or more drinks in one sitting for women.

Identity Diffusion

An identity status in which an individual has neither made a commitment to an identity nor is actively searching for one.

Identity Foreclosure

An identity status in which an individual has committed to an identity without engaging in preliminary exploration or searching.

Identity Moratorium

An identity status where an adolescent has not yet committed to an identity but is actively exploring different options.

Identity Achievement

An identity status reached when an individual has successfully chosen and committed to an identity following a period of searching.

Bicultural Identity

An identity outcome where minority group members draw from their heritage culture while simultaneously integrating into the dominant culture.

Autonomy

Personal independence and a sense of having control over one's own life, often strived for during adolescence.

Generation Gap

A divide between parents and their adolescent children in values, attitudes, and viewpoints.

Reference Group

A group of people with whom an individual compares themselves, providing standards for acceptable roles and behaviors.

Cliques

Small peer groups of $4$ to $6$ individuals who are friends, share similar interests, and spend substantial time together.

Crowds

Larger, loosely organized, mixed-sex groups of adolescents that are often labeled with names and defined by shared reputations.

Peer Pressure

The social influence exerted by peers encouraging an individual to conform to their behaviors, decisions, and attitudes.

Childhood-Onset Delinquency

Delinquent behavior beginning in childhood (before age $10$) characterized by high levels of aggression, disobedience, and threatening conduct.

Adolescent-Onset Delinquency

Delinquent conduct that begins in adolescence (age $11$ or older) where rule violations and problems are typically milder.