Child Development: Infancy and Early Childhood

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering social, physical, and cognitive milestones from infancy through early childhood based on lecture transcripts.

Temperament

An individual's consistent patterns of arousal and emotionality.

Goodness-of-fit

The degree to which an environment matches an individual's temperament, which relates to later outcomes such as behavioral problems or expressivity.

Rouge test

A test of self-recognition where a mark is placed on an infant's head and they are placed in front of a mirror to see if they touch their own head.

Social referencing

The process of looking to others for help understanding new or confusing situations.

Primary intersubjectivity

Focused, face-to-face interaction between an infant and caregiver that improves the child's ability to recognize and regulate emotions.

Mirror neurons

Brain cells that fire when an individual sees or hears another perform an action, just as they would fire if the individual were performing the action themselves.

Still face experiment

A procedure where a mother maintains a neutral expression toward her baby while the baby tries to regain her attention, typically causing a negative response in the infant.

Drive-Reduction theory of attachment

Freud's theory proposing that an infant's attachment to the mother originates in the satisfied need for nourishment; disproved by Harlow's monkey study.

Ethological explanation of attachment

Bowlby's theory that attachment provides a sense of security and a safe base from which to explore the world, having an evolutionary basis.

Strange Situation

A laboratory procedure developed by Mary Ainsworth to test the security of the mother-child relationship by observing how the baby uses the mother as a secure base and responds to separation and reunion.

Secure attachment

An attachment pattern exhibited by $65\%$ of US children, characterized by freely exploring in the caregiver's presence, visible distress upon departure, and a warm greeting upon reunion.

Avoidant attachment

An insecure attachment category where infants show little to no distress when separated from the caregiver and avoid interaction with the caregiver upon reunion.

Ambivalent (Resistant) attachment

An insecure attachment pattern where infants are distressed by separation, remain distressed upon return, and mix proximity-seeking with angry behaviors.

Bone ossification

The process by which bones harden as children grow, occurring first in the hand and wrist.

Corpus callosum

A piece of white connective tissue connecting the two cerebral hemispheres, allowing communication across both hemispheres and enabling divided attention.

Lateralization

The differentiation and specialization of the two hemispheres of the brain, such as the left hemisphere focusing on speaking and reading, and the right on spatial relationships and pattern recognition.

Night terror

An intense physiological arousal occurring in the first few hours of sleep that causes a child to awaken screaming in a state of panic, typically between ages $5$ and $12$.

Childhood obesity

A condition defined as having a body weight that is $20\%$ higher than average for a given age and height.

Centration

The tendency in the preoperational stage to focus exclusively on one aspect of a situation while ignoring other relevant aspects.

Animism

A preoperational limitation where children attribute human qualities and lifelike characteristics to inanimate objects.

Conservation

The understanding that the physical properties of an object remain identical even when its outward appearance is altered; typically acquired around age $5$ to $6$ and mastered by age $8$.

Egocentrism

The preoperational belief that one's own physical, communicative, or emotional perspective is the only one possible, as assessed by Piaget's mountain task.

Theory of Mind

The ability to think about others' mental states, desires, beliefs, and intentions, commonly evaluated using false belief tasks such as the Sally-Anne task.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

Vygotsky's concept representing the stretch between what a learner can achieve independently and what they are not yet ready to learn, defining the tasks they can accomplish with guidance.

Scaffolding

An instructional process where a more knowledgeable partner adjusts the amount and type of support provided to match the child's learning needs.

Fast mapping

The process by which children associate new words with their meaning after hearing them only once or twice, continuing through age $6$.

Private speech

Speech directed at oneself that guides thoughts and behavior, acting as a precursor to internal dialogues.

Pragmatics

The social rules governing how language is used appropriately in context, including turn-taking and adjusting speech to the listener's characteristics.

Initiative vs. Guilt

Erikson's early childhood stage where children develop initiative if allowed to explore and make decisions, but develop guilt if their efforts are repressed through criticism and control.

Gender Constancy

The cognitive understanding developed at $6$ to $7$ years that gender does not change and is not contingent on outward appearance.

Authoritative parenting

A parenting style high in control and high in emotionality, characterized by reciprocal communication, reasoning over physical punishment, and encouragement of independence.

Authoritarian parenting

A parenting style high in control and low in emotionality, characterized by unidirectional communication, punitive methods, and an emphasis on obedience over independence.

Permissive parenting

A parenting style low in control and high in emotionality, characterized by indulgence, lack of enforced expectations, and allowing children to learn through experience.

Parallel play

A form of play where children use similar toys at the same time alongside a peer without interacting with one another.

Associate play

A play pattern where two or more children interact and share toys without coordinating to work on the exact same activity.

Infantile marasmus

A form of severe wasting and starvation in infants caused by a complete lack of calories and protein.

Kwashiorkor

A severe malnutrition condition caused by diets deficient in protein (often after weaning), characterized by a swollen abdomen and loss of appetite.

Synaptogenesis

The rapid formation of neural connections occurring between $3$ and $12$ months of life, during which the number of synapses in the brain doubles.

Synaptic pruning

The developmental process where neural connections that are not regularly used die off based on the 'use it or lose it' principle.

Experience-expectant processes

Brain processes that are expected in all typical human environments and are critical for normal development, such as exposure to language sounds, nutrition, and affection.

Infant Grasp Milestones

Developmental progressions of fine motor grasping, including the thumb and finger grasp and scissors grasp at $9$ months, followed by the thumb and forefinger grasp and pincer grasp at $1$ year.

Habituation

A decrease in physiological responsiveness when an infant is subjected to repeated exposure to the same sensory stimulus.

Object permanence

The cognitive understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight, developing during the coordination of secondary circular reactions ($8$-$12$ months).

Deferred imitation

The ability to observe an action at one point in time and reproduce it at a later time based on stored memory, emerging around $18$-$24$ months.

Morphemes

The smallest units of meaning within the words of a language.

Holophrases

Single-word utterances used by infants to represent entire phrases or sentences, almost always accompanied by nonverbal gestures and facial expressions.

Telegraphic speech

Two-word utterances appearing between $20$ and $26$ months that omit grammatical markers but adhere strictly to the word order of the language.

Language acquisition device (LAD)

Noam Chomsky's proposed innate biological system programmed to recognize universal grammar and principles of human language.