Development over the Life Span: Children

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering developmental psychology across the life span with a focus on childhood, including prenatal stages, reflexes, Piaget's cognitive theory, Kohlberg's moral stages, language milestones, and parenting styles.

Cross-sectional research

A research methodology that examines groups of subjects who are of different ages.

Longitudinal research

A research methodology that examines the same group of subjects two or more times as they age.

Biographical research

Studying developmental changes by reconstructing subjects' past through interviews and investigating the effects of past events on current behaviors.

Prenatal development

Development from conception to birth.

Embryo

The developing human from $2\text{ weeks}$ after conception to $3\text{ months}$.

Fetus

The developing human from $3\text{ months}$ after conception to birth.

Placenta

The organ by which an embryo or fetus is attached to its mother's uterus and that nourishes it during prenatal development.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)

A condition caused by heavy alcohol consumption by the mother during pregnancy, resulting in facial deformities, heart defects, stunted growth, and cognitive impairments.

Rooting reflex

A neonate reflex where a baby turns its head toward something touching its cheek and gropes around with its mouth.

Sucking reflex

A neonate reflex involving sucking on any object placed in a baby's mouth.

Swallowing reflex

A neonate reflex that enables the baby to swallow liquids without choking.

Grasping reflex

A neonate reflex where infants close their fists on anything that is placed in their hands.

Stepping reflex

The light stepping motions made by neonates if they are held upright with their feet just touching a surface.

Temperament

The physical and emotional characteristics of the newborn child and young infant.

Easy temperament

A temperament type (identified by Thomas and Chess) where an infant is good-natured and adaptable, easy to care for, and easy to please.

Difficult temperament

A temperament type (identified by Thomas and Chess) where an infant is moody and intense, reacting to new people and new situations negatively and strongly.

"Slow-to-warm-up" temperament

A temperament type (identified by Thomas and Chess) where an infant is relatively inactive, slow to respond to new things, and shows mild reactions when responding.

Visual cliff studies

Studies demonstrating depth perception in infants; crawling babies refuse to cross over onto the deep side, while non-crawling infants show no anxiety but still demonstrate depth perception.

Cephalocaudal development

A developmental trend in which development occurs in areas near the head (cephalo) first and areas farther from the head (caudal, meaning tail) develop later.

Proximodistal development

A developmental trend in which development occurs near the center of the body (proximal) first and near the extremities (distal) later.

Gross to specific development

A developmental trend in which children tend to gain control of gross (large muscle) movement before they gain control of specific (fine motor control) movement.

Sensory-motor stage

Piaget's stage from birth to $2\text{ years}$ of age, marked by the emergence of object permanence and mental representations.

Object permanence

The concept that things continue to exist even when they are out of sight.

Mental representations

Mental images or symbols (such as words) used to think about or remember an object, a person, or an event.

Preoperational stage

Piaget's stage from $2$ to $7\text{ years}$ of age, where a child becomes able to use mental representations and language to describe, remember, and reason about the world, but thought remains egocentric.

Egocentric

Unable to see things from another person's point of view.

Concrete-operational stage

Piaget's stage from $7$ to $11\text{ years}$ of age, where a child can attend to more than one thing at a time, understand another's point of view, and understand conservation, though thinking remains limited to concrete matters.

Principles of conservation

The concept that basic amounts remain constant despite superficial changes in appearances.

Formal-operational stage

Piaget's stage from $11$ to $15\text{ years}$ of age, in which the individual becomes capable of abstract thought.

Preconventional level

Kohlberg's stage of moral development where behavior is interpreted in terms of its concrete consequences.

Conventional level

Kohlberg's stage of moral development where behavior is interpreted in terms of social and societal approval.

Postconventional level

Kohlberg's stage of moral development characterized by an emphasis on abstract principles such as justice, liberty, and equality.

Cooing

Vowel-like utterances that emerge around $2\text{ months}$ of age.

Babbling

Meaningless sounds made around $3$ to $4\text{ months}$ of age that serve as the building blocks for later language development.

Intonation

The changing of pitch used to distinguish questions from statements, developing between $4$ and $6\text{ months}$ of age.

Holophrases

One-word sentences used by infants between $12$ and $20\text{ months}$ of age.

Language acquisition device (LAD)

An innate, internal mechanism for processing speech proposed by Noam Chomsky that allows children to understand the basic rules of grammar.

Imprinting

A form of primitive bonding seen in some animal species where a newborn tends to follow the first moving thing it sees after it is born or hatched.

Attachment

The emotional bond that develops in the first year of life that makes human babies cling to their caregivers for safety and comfort.

Socialization

The process by which children learn the behaviors and attitudes appropriate to their family and their culture.

Authoritarian parenting

A parenting style characterized by strict and rigid discipline, resulting in children who are withdrawn and distrustful.

Permissive parenting

A parenting style characterized by too little discipline, resulting in children who are overly dependent and lack self-control.

Authoritative parenting

A parenting style characterized by firm and fair discipline, resulting in children who are self-reliant and socially responsible.