HDFS 311 Exam 2 Study Guide Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering core child development concepts, experimental paradigms, theories, and social policies from the HDFS 311 Exam 2 Study Guide.

Convention on the Rights of the Child

A globally recognized treaty outlining the specific fundamental rights, protections, and developmental needs of children worldwide.

Herd immunity

The indirect protection from infectious disease that occurs when a high percentage of a population becomes immune, predominantly through vaccination.

Resilience

In developmental science, the process of positive adaptation and healthy development despite facing significant adversity or chronic stress.

Pre-Operational Stage

Piaget's second stage of cognitive development, characterized by symbolic thinking but marked by cognitive limitations such as centration, egocentrism, and lack of conservation.

Concrete Operational Stage

Piaget's third stage of cognitive development, during which children develop logical operations, grasp conservation of mass, and understand reversibility regarding tangible objects.

Centration

A cognitive limitation in the pre-operational period where a child focuses entirely on a single striking feature of an object or situation while disregarding others.

Reversibility

The cognitive understanding that actions, transformations, or operations can be mentally or physically undone to return to their initial state.

Egocentrism

A limitation characteristic of the pre-operational stage where a child struggles to perceive or consider situations from perspectives other than their own.

Executive function

A suite of higher-order cognitive processes required for goal-directed action, comprising working memory, inhibitory control, and attentional shifting.

Inhibitory control

A key component of executive function that allows a child to suppress automatic, impulsive responses or distractions to follow rules and achieve goals.

Top-down vs. bottom-up control

The dual levels of self-regulation where top-down refers to deliberate, conscious cognitive control and bottom-up refers to automatic, reactive physiological and biological responses.

HTKS (Heads Toes Knees Shoulders game)

A structured behavioral assessment of preschool self-regulation and inhibitory control requiring children to perform actions opposite to the examiner's verbal command.

Theory of Mind

The cognitive realization that other individuals possess independent thoughts, beliefs, and desires, forming the foundation for false belief understanding and lying.

Sally-Anne task

A classic false-belief assessment designed to measure whether a child can attribute a mistaken mental state to another person.

Head Start

A federally funded program providing comprehensive early education, health, and family support services to low-income preschool-aged children in the U.S.

Abecedarian Project

A prominent longitudinal study illustrating the enduring cognitive, academic, and socio-economic benefits of high-quality early childhood intervention starting in infancy.

Perry Preschool

A landmark high-quality early intervention study that showed significant long-term educational attainment, social benefits, and economic return on investment (ROI).

Wire mother experiment

A classic attachment study demonstrating that infant attachment relies heavily on physical contact comfort rather than purely on nutritional reinforcement.

Strange Situation

A standardized observational laboratory procedure developed to measure and classify infant-caregiver attachment styles into secure or insecure patterns.

Rouge Test

An experimental assessment measuring visual self-recognition in toddlers by applying a red spot to the face and observing the child's reaction in a mirror.

Instrumental aggression

Antisocial behavior directed toward gaining a specific desired object, space, or reward rather than causing intentional psychological harm.

Relational aggression

A form of non-physical aggression intended to harm another individual by manipulating peer relationships, spreading rumors, or socially excluding them.

Ecological model of development

Bronfenbrenner's framework illustrating child development as shaped by nested, interacting environmental contexts ranging from immediate settings to macro culture.

Baumrind’s 4 parenting styles

A typology of child-rearing practices defined by varying combinations of responsiveness/warmth and demandingness/control (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved).

Gender Intensification Hypothesis

The view that developmental transitions, especially during adolescence, trigger heightened social pressure to adhere strictly to traditional gender-role expectations.

In-group bias

The developmental tendency to show preference, favorable evaluations, and greater empathy toward individuals categorized within one's own social group.

Differential susceptibility (orchid and dandelion)

A framework stating that children vary in environmental sensitivity: 'dandelions' are hardy across conditions, while 'orchids' are highly susceptible to both poor and supportive contexts.