Developmental Psychology: Chapters 4, 5, and 6 Study Guide

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering physical growth, brain development, sensory capabilities, motor milestones, cognitive stages, information processing, language acquisition, psychosocial tasks, temperament, and attachment across Chapters 4, 5, and 6.

Cephalocaudal Development

The developmental principle that growth proceeds from the head downward.

Proximodistal Development

The developmental principle that growth and development proceed from the center of the body outward.

Growth Norms

Expectations for typical gains and variations in height and weight based on chronological age and ethnic background.

Marasmus

A wasting disease in which body fat and muscle are depleted due to a diet chronically insufficient in protein, calories, and nutrients.

Kwashiorkor

A form of malnutrition caused by insufficient protein intake—often occurring when breastfeeding is prematurely abandoned—characterized by lethargy, wrinkled skin, swelling, and thin, brittle, colorless hair.

Failure to Thrive

A condition in which an infant's weight is less than 80% of the norm or below the fifth percentile for their age without an identified medical cause.

Neurons

Brain cells specialized to communicate, enabling sensing, thinking, and movement.

Neurogenesis

The biological process of creating new neurons.

Glial Cells

Cells that produce myelin and coat the axons of neurons.

Cerebral Cortex

The outer layer of the brain, comprised of specialized regions distributed across four lobes and two hemispheres joined by the corpus callosum.

Synaptogenesis

The developmental process through which neurons form synapses and increase connections.

Synaptic Pruning

The loss of unused neural connections, allowing active pathways to strengthen while unused ones shrink, atrophy, and disappear.

Myelination

The process of coating axons with a fatty substance called myelin, increasing the speed of neural impulse transmission.

Lateralization

The specialization of cognitive and motor functions between the brain's left and right hemispheres.

Corpus Collosum

The thick band of neural fibers that joins the two hemispheres of the brain.

Experience-Expectant Brain Development

Brain development dependent on common environmental experiences universally expected early in life, such as visual stimulation.

Experience-Dependent Brain Development

Brain changes shaped by individual, unique experiences, such as learning to crawl on a slippery floor or stack blocks.

Habituation

A gradual decrease in responsiveness resulting from repeated exposure to a stimulus.

Classical Conditioning

A learning process in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response (e.g., stroking an infant's forehead paired with sugar water to elicit sucking).

Operant Conditioning

A form of learning where voluntary behaviors are modified by reinforcement or punishment (e.g., newborns altering sucking rates to hear their mother's voice).

Intermodal Perception

The process of combining and integrating sensory information received simultaneously from more than one sensory system.

Visual Cliff

A classic apparatus designed by Gibson and Walk (1960) to study depth perception in infants, demonstrating that crawling experience influences how depth is perceived.

Gross Motor Development

The ability to control large body movements that enable movement and locomotion through the environment.

Fine Motor Development

The ability to control small, precise movements of the fingers and hands, such as reaching and grasping.

Dynamic Systems Theory

A theoretical framework stating that motor development reflects a dynamic interaction among developmental domains, biological maturation, and environmental context (Thelen).

Cruising

A motor milestone typically achieved around 9 months in which an infant walks while holding on to furniture for support.

Assimilation

Piagetian process of fitting new environmental experiences into pre-existing cognitive schemas.

Accommodation

Piagetian process of modifying existing schemas to incorporate new information and experiences.

Mental Representation

The capacity to use internal symbols, such as words and mental pictures, to stand for objects and actions in memory.

Primary Circular Reactions

Sensorimotor Substage 2 behaviors (1 to 4 months) where infants repeat accidental, bodily actions that produce pleasurable or interesting sensations.

Secondary Circular Reactions

Sensorimotor Substage 3 behaviors (4 to 8 months) where infants repeat actions that trigger responses and effects in the external environment.

Object Permanence

The understanding that physical objects continue to exist even when they are out of direct sensory sight or contact (emerging in Substage 4, 8 to 12 months).

Tertiary Circular Reactions

Sensorimotor Substage 5 behaviors (12 to 18 months) involving purposeful trial-and-error exploration and varying actions to observe different outcomes.

A-not-B Error

An infant search error where an object is sought in its original hiding place (A) even after the infant observes it being moved to a second hiding location (B).

Deferred Imitation

The ability to remember and reproduce a sequence of actions observed at an earlier time (emerging in Substage 6, 18 to 24 months).

Violation-of-Expectation Task

A research method where infants look longer at an event that appears impossible or violates physical laws, indicating an awareness of physical properties.

Sensory Memory

The mental store that holds incoming sensory input in its original raw form for a brief period unless attended to or processed.

Working Memory

The short-term cognitive store that holds, encodes, manipulates, and retrieves information currently being consciously processed.

Central Executive

The control processor in information-processing theory that directs information flow, manages attention, initiates action, and coordinates problem solving.

Long-Term Memory

An unlimited cognitive storehouse that retains information indefinitely until it is retrieved back into working memory.

Bayley Scales of Infant Development 3 (Bayley-III)

A standardized assessment tool for infants aged 1 through 42 months measuring cognitive, language, motor, social-emotional, and adaptive behaviors.

Cooing

Deliberate production of vowel-like sounds emerging between 2 and 3 months of age.

Babbling

The repetition of consonant-vowel combinations (such as 'ba-ba') that begins around 6 months of age.

Canonical Babbling

Advanced babbling featuring well-formed syllables that closely resembles the sounds and rhythms of spoken language.

Holophrase

A single word used by an infant to convey a complete sentence, intention, or thought.

Fast Mapping

The cognitive process of rapidly acquiring and retaining a basic understanding of a new word after only a few exposures.

Naming Explosion

A period of rapid vocabulary expansion that typically occurs between 16 and 24 months of age.

Underextension

The overly restrictive application of a newly learned word, using it only for a single specific object rather than the entire category.

Overextension

The overly broad application of a word to encompass objects or concepts that share general perceptual qualities (e.g., calling all four-legged animals 'cow').

Telegraphic Speech

Economical early speech around 21 months composed primarily of essential content words, omitting grammatical markers and auxiliary words.

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

Noam Chomsky's proposed innate, biologically based brain mechanism that contains universal grammatical rules and facilitates language acquisition.

Infant-Directed Speech

A simplified, high-pitched, emotionally expressive style of speaking characterized by short sentences, repetition, slower rate, and elongated pauses.

Trust Versus Mistrust

Erikson's first psychosocial stage in infancy, where infants learn whether their caregivers can be relied upon to consistently meet their physical and emotional needs.

Autonomy Versus Shame and Doubt

Erikson's second psychosocial stage during toddlerhood, where children develop self-reliance and confidence in navigating their environment independently.

Basic Emotions

Biologically predetermined universal emotional reactions present early in life, including interest, distress, and disgust.

Self-Conscious Emotions

Complex emotions that require self-awareness and understanding of social rules, including empathy, embarrassment, shame, and guilt.

Social Referencing

The practice of looking to trusted adults' emotional expressions in ambiguous situations to clarify meaning and guide personal behavior.

Emotional Display Rules

Cultural specifications and societal norms dictating which emotions are appropriate to show and how they should be expressed in various situations.

Temperament

A biologically based, characteristic way in which an individual approaches, experiences, and reacts to people and environmental situations.

Goodness of Fit

The degree of compatibility and match between a child's temperament and their social and physical environment, particularly parental childrearing practices.

Attachment

A strong, enduring affectionate tie between two individuals who strive to maintain physical and psychological closeness.

Secure Base

The role of a primary caregiver as a foundation of safety and security from which an infant feels confident to explore the surrounding environment.

Internal Working Model

A set of cognitive expectations and mental representations about the availability, responsiveness, and reliability of attachment figures.

Strange Situation

A standardized laboratory procedure involving brief separations and reunions with a caregiver used to measure the quality of infant attachment under stress.

Secure Attachment

An attachment pattern in which an infant explores freely when the caregiver is present, shows distress during separation, seeks physical comfort upon reunion, and easily returns to play.

Insecure-Avoidant Attachment

An attachment pattern characterized by minimal distress during caregiver separation and deliberate avoidance or ignoring of the caregiver upon reunion.

Insecure-Resistant Attachment

An attachment pattern characterized by intense separation distress, ambivalence, and seeking proximity upon reunion while simultaneously resisting physical comfort.

Insecure-Disorganized Attachment

An attachment pattern characterized by contradictory, confused, and apprehensive reactions to the caregiver upon reunion.

Self-Recognition

The cognitive ability to recognize, differentiate, and identify oneself as an entity distinct from others.

Categorical Self

The description and classification of oneself based on observable categories such as age, sex, physical attributes, and behaviors.