Child and Adolescent Development

Flashcards covering key concepts, research designs, issues, and principles in child and adolescent development.

Proximodistal Pattern

A developmental pattern where growth starts from the torso, or the body's center, and moves outwards to the arms and the legs.

Cephalocaudal Pattern

A developmental pattern where growth starts from the head and moves down to the feet.

Traditional Approach to Human Development

An approach characterized by extensive change from birth to adolescence, little or no change in adulthood, and decline in late old age.

Life-span Development Approach

An approach asserting that developmental change takes place during adulthood as it does during childhood.

Developmental Task (Havighurst)

A task that arises at a certain period in our life, the successful achievement of which leads to happiness and success with later tasks while failure leads to unhappiness, social disapproval, and difficulty with later tasks.

Metacognition (Strategic Processing and Control)

The skills developed by learners to reflect and regulate their thoughts and behaviors in order to learn more effectively.

Nature

Refers largely to genetics, including the genes individuals are born with and other hereditary factors that impact personality formation and development.

Nurture

Encompasses environmental factors impacting who we are, including early childhood experiences, upbringing, social relationships, and surrounding culture.

Continuity View

The perspective that development is a continuous process that is gradual and cumulative, like hiking up a mountain path.

Discontinuity View

The belief that people pass through stages of life that are qualitatively different from each other, like walking up a series of steps.

Stability

The concept implying that personality traits present during infancy endure throughout the lifespan.

Quantitative Development

Changes that children go through as they gain knowledge and grow larger physically.

Qualitative Development

Stage changes in the way that a child thinks and behaves, as well as how they perceive the world as they grow older.

Hypothesis

An educated guess formulated as part of the scientific method.

Experimental Research

A research design that determines cause-and-effect relationships and serves as the only true reliable method of establishing cause and effect.

Descriptive Research

Research focused on describing data and characteristics about the subjects being studied.

Case Study

A research design providing an in-depth look at an individual, including information about fears, hopes, fantasies, traumatic experiences, upbringing, and family relations.

Correlational Study

A research design that determines associations between events to predict one from the other without manipulating factors.

Naturalistic Observation

A research design focusing on children's experiences in a natural setting, allowing direct observation of subjects in real-world environments like classrooms or homes.

Longitudinal Study

A research strategy that studies and follows a single group over a period of time, usually several years or more, to record and monitor developmental trends.

Cross-sectional Study

A research strategy in which individuals of different ages are compared at one time.

Sequential Study

A research design that combines cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches to learn about life span development.

Action Research

A reflective process of progressive problem-solving led by individuals working in teams or a community of practice to improve how they address issues and solve problems.

Physiological Measures

A data gathering technique where indicators of development such as heart rate, hormonal levels, bone growth, body weight, and brain activity are measured.

Standardized Tests

Prepared tests administered in a consistent manner to assess individuals' performance in different domains.

Life-History Records

Records of information about a lifetime chronology of events used as a data gathering technique.

Data Privacy Act of 2012

Legislation enacted to protect the fundamental human right of privacy of communication while ensuring free flow of information to promote innovation and growth.