3: Physical and Cognitive Development in Infants and Toddlers

Question 1

the gap between the dendrites of one neuron and the axon of another, over which impulses flow

Answer 1

synapse

Question 2

an effective calming strategy that involves holding a young infant next to a caregiver’s body

Answer 2

skin-to-skin contact

Question 3

excessively short stature in a child, caused by chronic lack of adequate nutrition

Answer 3

stunting

Question 4

standard custom, in collectivist cultures, of having a child and parent share a bed

Answer 4

co-sleeping

Question 5

Chomsky’s term for a hypothetical brain structure that enables our species to learn and produce language

Answer 5

language acquisition device (LAD)

Question 6

first infant habits during sensorimotor stage, centered on the body

Answer 6

primary circular reactions

Question 7

children’s ability to put themselves back to sleep when they wake up during the night - usually begins at about 6 months of age

Answer 7

self-soothing

Question 8

the outer, folded mantle of the brain, responsible for thinking, reasoning, perceiving, and all conscious responses

Answer 8

cerebral cortex

Question 9

a baby’s frantic, continual crying during the first three months of life, caused by an immature nervous system

Answer 9

colic

Question 10

predictable loss of interest that develops once a stimulus becomes familiar

Answer 10

habituation

Question 11

infant habits beginning around age 1, involving flexibly changing behavior to explore properties of objects, experiment with them (little-scientist phase)

Answer 11

tertiary circular reactions

Question 12

newborns’ automatic response to a touch on the cheek, turning toward that location and beginning to suck

Answer 12

rooting reflex

Question 13

performing a different action to achieve a certain goal - sign of emerging reasoning around age 1

Answer 13

means-end behavior

Question 14

human tendency to be hypersensitive to fearful facial cues that, by alerting us to danger, may prevent us from harm

Answer 14

fear bias

Question 15

formation of a fatty layer encasing the axons of neurons, speeds transmission of impulses - continues from birth to early adulthood

Answer 15

myelination

Question 16

first clear evidence of language, when babies use a single word to communicate a sentence or complete thought

Answer 16

holophrase

Question 17

tree-like, branching ends of brain that receive information and conduct impulses toward the cell body of a neuron

Answer 17

dendrites

Question 18

long nerve fibers that conduct impulses away from the cell body of a neuron

Answer 18

axons

Question 19

the unexplained death of an apparently healthy infant, often while sleeping, during the first year of life

Answer 19

sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Question 20

first stage of combining words in which a toddler pares down a sentence to its essential words

Answer 20

telegraphic speech

Question 21

alternating vowel and consonant sounds that babies repeat with varying intonation, pitch - precede first words

Answer 21

babbling

Question 22

principle that human beings are attracted to novelty and look selectively at new things

Answer 22

preferential-looking paradigm

Question 23

forming of connections between neurons at the synapses, responsible for all perceptions, actions, thoughts - continues throughout life

Answer 23

synaptogenesis

Question 24

a response or action that is automatic, not under conscious control

Answer 24

reflex

Question 25

Piaget’s first stage of cognitive development, lasting from birth to age 2, when babies’ agenda is to pin down the basics of physical reality through senses

Answer 25

sensorimotor stage

Question 26

infant habits centered on exploring the external world - lasting from 4 months to baby’s first birthday

Answer 26

secondary circular reactions

Question 27

understanding that objects continue to exist even when we can no longer see them

Answer 27

object permanence

Question 28

repetitive action-oriented schemas (habits) characteristic of babies during sensorimotor stage

Answer 28

circular reactions

Question 29

phase of sleep involving rapid eye movements, dreaming - infants spend most their time in this state, decreases as they mature

Answer 29

REM sleep

Question 30

approach to language development that emphasizes its social function, specifically that babies and adults have mutual passion to communicate

Answer 30

social-interactionist perspective

Question 31

a chronic lack of adequate food

Answer 31

undernutrition

Question 32

malleable - capable of being changed

Answer 32

plastic

Question 33

simplified, exaggerated, high-pitched tones that adults and children use to speak to infants that function to help teach language

Answer 33

infant-directed speech (IDS)

Question 34

statistic of U.S. households that report needing to serve unbalanced meals, worries about not having enough food, going hungry due to lack of money

Answer 34

food insecurity

Question 35

mistake made by infants in the sensorimotor stage, where they return to the original hiding place to look for an object even though they have seen it in a second place

Answer 35

A-not-B error

Question 36

carrying a young baby in a sling close to the caregiver’s body - useful soothing technique

Answer 36

kangaroo care

Question 37

ability to judge distances, including seeing heights

Answer 37

depth perception

Question 38

making the home safe for a newly mobile infant

Answer 38

baby-proofing

Question 39

the automatic, spontaneous sucking movements newborns produce, especially when anything touches their lips

Answer 39

sucking reflex

Question 40

any skill related to managing and decoding people’s emotions and feelings, negotiating interpersonal interactions

Answer 40

social cognition

Question 41

rules and word-arranging systems that every human language employs to communicate meaning

Answer 41

grammar

Question 42

a table that appears to “end” in a drop-off at its midpoint; used to test infant depth perception

Answer 42

visual cliff

Question 43

perspective on understanding cognition that divides thinking into specific steps and component processes, like a computer

Answer 43

information-processing approach

Question 44

research using preferential looking and habituation to explore what young babies know about faces

Answer 44

face-perception studies