flash card development

Key Vocabulary for Developmental Psychology

Below you will find a list of all of the vocabulary you will need to know for this unit. While most of the concepts are covered in your textbook, some are not. Please define each of these terms and include any relevant illustrations that may help you to understand and remember them. 

You can present these vocabulary terms to me in a variety of ways: Google Docs, Google Slides, Note Cards, handwritten in your notebooks,  Quizlet (that you make yourself), or other methods. 

Themes and Methods in Developmental Psychology

• Chronological development

• sequence of changes overs time like age and things u can’t control like emotional etc… 

• Lifespan development

• how people change cognitively physically and mentally as they age towards death 

• Stability and change do personalities and behavior stay consistent or do they changed over time 

• Nature and nurture

• Genetic or biological factors that shape our environment or upbringing? 

• Continuous development

• Is human development gradual:

• Discontinuous development

  • Sees the development as more abrupt a succession of changes that produce different behaviors in different age-specific life periods called stages

• Evident in beginning readers who suddenly discover the connection between letters and sounds

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Physical Development Across the Lifespan

• Teratogens

  • Agents lie chemicals and viruses that may potentially reach the embryo/fetus in prenatal development which can cause harm 

• Brain development--during puberty

  • Changes structurally and functionally by hormones, genetic factors and environmental

    • Neural pruning

    • Prefrontal cortex

    • Myelination

    • Emotional centers

    • Reward pathway 

• Fine motor coordination

  • Coordination of small actions

• Gross motor coordination

  • Coordination of larger movements

• Maturation

  • The orderly sequence of biological growth 

• Reflexes

  • a movement pattern triggered by a stimulus

    • Permanent: swallowing blinking

    • Neonatal reflexes:

      • Motor reflex

      • Grasping reflex

      • Rooting reflex 

      • Sucking reflex 

• Intersex:

  • Condition at birth of combo of female and male chromosomes

• Rooting reflex

  • Touch near the mouth will trigger newborns to move their head and mouth toward the touch, help ability to find breast 

• Visual cliff

  • Infant on glass surface w appearance of drop off and they hesitated ove  crawling on edge--shows spatial relationships

• Critical periods

  • Language: suggests that there is a specific window of time during which humans are most adept at learning languages, it ends around the time of puberty (GENIE WILEY)

• Sensitive periods

  • Similar to a critical period-where its a specific timeframe during development when an individual is receptive to stimuli or experiences, the brain is more plastic however unlike critical periods, it allows for learning to still occur later in life even though it may be lest effective 

• Imprinting

  • In birds: where powerful attraction between infants and first moving object they spend time with 

• Growth spurt

  • A puberty landmark

• Puberty

  • Period of rapid growth and sexual maturation 

• Primary sex characteristics

  • For males: growth of testes,female uterus (changes in reproductive organs)

• Secondary sex characteristics

  • Physical changes not directly linked to reproduction but signal sexual maturity 

    • Males: broader shoulders, deeper voice, females: broadening hip and growth of body hair

• Menarche

  • The first menstrual period 

• Spermarche

  • First ejaculation 

• Menopause

  • Marks end of women's menstrual period 
    

Cognitive Development Across the Lifespan

• Schemas

  • PIAGET’S THEORY

  • Mental structures that guide thinking--building blocks of development--they form and change as we develop and organize our knowledge to deal with new experiences and predict future events 

• Assimilation

  • Part of piaget theory-process that modifies new info to fit within existing schemas or what's already known 

• Accommodation

  • Process of restructuring or modifying schemas to incorporate new nfo (makes new info fit with our existing view of the world) PART OF PIAGET 

• Sensorimotor stage

  • Children mostly gie reflexive responses with very little thinking involved 

• Object permanence

  • Objects exist independently of one's own actions and awareness 

• Preoperational stage: from 2-7yr of age where well developed mental rep and the use of language--but children cannot problem solve 

• Mental symbols

  • Child's arms may be mental symbol of an airplane or birds wing 

• Pretend play

  • Part of mental symbol 

• Conservation

  • Quantity remains the same despite changes in shape 

• irReversibility:

  • Inability to think through a series of events or steps then reverse course 

• Animism

  • Believing inanimate objects have life and mental processes 

    • “Bad table” 

• Egocentrism

  • Self centered focus that causes children to see the world only in their own terms 

• Theory of mind

  • Ability to infer others mental states and know they may be different than our own 

• Concrete operational stage

  • Child develops ability of irreversibility, conservation and mental operations 

• Systematic thinking

  • Step-by-step approach to problem solving and it involves carefully considering evidence and evaluating different perspectives and following a structured process to reach conclusions. 

• Formal operational stage

  • Piaget's final stage where he says people begin to think about issues like being more accepted by peers and abstract issues like love, fairness and our reason for existence 

• Abstract thinking

  • Ability to understand to concept that ant directly tied to concrete experiences or physical objects-its like recongizing patterns,

    • according to Piaget formal operational stage where individuals develop the ability to

• Hypothetical thinking

• Scaffolding (as it pertains to Vygotsky)

  • The breaking down of information or of parts of a new skill into pieces that are digestible for the learner 

• Zone of proximal development

  • Space between what a learner can do without assistance and what a learner can do with adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers 

• Crystallized intelligence

  • Our accumulate knowledge as reflected in vocabulary and similarity tests-increase with age 

• Fluid intelligence

  • Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly, as when solving novel logic problem decreases with age 

• Dementia
  

Communication and Language Development

• Phonemes

  • Smallest distinctive sound unit 

• Morphemes

  • Smallest unit that carrie meaning 

• Semantics

• Grammar

  • System of rules in a language that enables us to communicate with and understand other 

• Syntax

• Cooing

• Babbling

  • Starts at about 4 months, associating sounds with facial movements 

• One-word stage

  • Holophrases-from 1 to 2 and is the stage in speech development which a child speaks mostly in single word-one word sentence with meaning 

• Telegraphic speech

  • Two word stage, in speech development where a child speak in mostly 2 word statements 

• Overgeneralization of language rules

• I goed to store

• an over generalized of how sentences are formed understand language structure but can’t apply it correctly or know the exceptions 

• Noam Chomsky-Language Acquisition Device-LAD: a mental structure that facilitates the learning of language because it is preprogrammed with fundamental language rules.

• Nonverbal communications

• ways to communicate using physical communication or body language 
  

Social-Emotional Development Across the Lifespan

• Ecological systems theory

  • Proposed by urie bronfenbrenner as a method of considering social contexts

  • Provides a system to identify and explain diff environments that we operate in a social individuals 

• Microsystem

  • Closest surroundings and people, includes our immediate family friends teachers etc. basically the people and places that we interact with reguaryl (critical for development as we have the most personal interaction here) 

• Mesosystem

  • Involves ways that our microsystem influences  may interact with one another (e: parent teacher conferences)

  • Influence on the individual is less direct but is still apparent

• Exosystem

  • Includes things that do not directly involve the individual but might still have influence like parents workplaces, events in community or mass media 

• Macrosystem

  • Level that applies to things like culture wealth and race

• Chronosystem

  • Largest level that encompassed all the others

    • Deals with time and the effects of time like major life events and changes 

• Authoritarian parenting

  • Parents are cold and rejecting, highly demanding, parents make decision for child 

• Authoritative parenting

  • Parents are warm, attentive and sensitive to hold, makes reasonable demands and child is allowed to make decisions in accord with developmental readiness 

• Permissive parenting

  • Parent is warm but spoils child, makes few or no demands, permits child to make decision before child ready 

• Attachment styles:

  • Way to safeguard an infant's survival by providing support and protection 

• Secure attachment

  • Confident attachment figure will meet their needs, use as a safe base to explore environment and seek figures i time of distress 

• Insecure attachment

  • Attachment style where a child doesn’t develop a strong, reliable bond with their caregiver due to inconsistent caregiving 

• Avoidant attachment

  • Do not orientate to attachment figure when investigating environment, independent of figure physically and emotionally 

• Anxious attachment

  • Clingy and dependent behavior, fails to develop feeling of security from the attachment figure 

• Disorganized attachment

  • Inconsistent and hard to predict behavior, pursue a loving relationship then detach or lash out a partner who gives them that love 

• Temperament

  • Individual’s innate personality traits and emotional reactivity, present from infancy and influence and how they respond to their environment 

    • easy

    • difficult

    • slow to warm up 

• Separation anxiety

• when a child is anxious and doesn’t want to be sosertwd from their parent when it’s time for them to be independent 

• Parallel play

  • Children playing near each other 

• Egocentrism:

  • a self centered focus that causes children to see the world only in their own terms.

• Imaginary audience

  • An adolescent tendency believe others are watching them 

• Personal fable

  • Adolescent belief that they are special and unique, none of life's difficulties or problems will affect them regardless of behavior 

• Social clock

  • Definition of the right time to leave home and get a job etc.. 

• Emerging adulthood

• development of middle aged to adulthood when you want to find out who your gonna be he ur career 

• Stage theory of psychosocial development (Erikson)

  • Identified 8 stages, with each bringing a new challenge, to move onto next stage the previous stage must be coped with 

  • Infancy

  • Toddler

  • Preschooler

  • Elementary

  • Adolescence

  • Young adults

  • Middle adult

  • Late adult 

• According to the theory: results in healthy personality and successful interactions with others--the big challenge is that it singles out for young adults 

• Trust and mistrust

  • Infancy: if needs are dependenably met, infants develop a sense of basic trait 

• Autonomy and shame and doubt

  • Toddler: learns to exercise will and do stings for themselves or they doubt their abilities (power/independence) 

• Initiative and guilt

  • Preschoolers learn to initiate tasks and carry out plans, r they feel guilt about efforts to plan/learn new skills 

• Industry and inferiority

• elementary- when children are inferior to other students and start feeling jealous if they are slow learners or such 

• Identity and role confusion

• adolescence phase where they struggle finding themselves and are confused of who they want to become 

• Identity achievement

  • : refers to exploring an identity and developing an understanding of the meaning of that identity in one's own life

• Identity confusion

  • Adolescence: teenagers work at refining self and are confused of who they are 

• Intimacy and isolation

  • Young adults struggle to form close relationships to gain capacity for intimate low or they feel socially isolated 

• Generativity and stagnation

  • Middle adult: discover a sense of contributing to the world usually through family and work 

• Integrity and despair

  • Lkate adult: reflects on his or her life the older adult may feel a sense of satisfaction or failure 

• Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs)

• stressful or traumatic experiences that scar you and how you will grow up 

• Achievement (adolescent development)

  • Exploring an identity and developing an understanding if the identity in one's own life (JM)

• Diffusion (adolescent development)

  • Psychological phenomenon where a person doesn't have a strong sense of who they are and they're not actively working on themselves 

• Foreclosure (adolescent development)

  • Unquestioning acceptance by individuals of the role value and goals that others have chosen for them 

• Identity moratorium (adolescent development)

  • Status that describes those who are actively exploring in an attempt to establish an identity but have yet to have any commitment 

• Racial/ethnic identity

• how your racial background affects your personality or identity 

• Sexual orientation: our sexial attraction towards members of our own or opposite sex 

• Religious identity

• how your religion affects how you are identified and perceived by others 

• Occupational identity

• how your job affects who you are as a person and how you describe yourself to others 

• Familial identity

• how your family and background influences affect your identity 

• Possible selves

• the peak that one could possibly be and imagine themselves becoming in the future 

• Adolescence: period that begins w puberty and end with transition into adulthood through physical cognitive or social changes