Ch. 3 Flashcards
Norm
An average calculated from many individuals within a specific group or population
Percentile
A point on a ranking scale of 0 to 100
REM sleep
Flickering eyes behind closed lids; dreaming
Head-sparing
A biological mechanism that protects the brain when malnutrition disrupts body growth
Neurons
Nerve cells in the central nervous system
Cortex
The outer layers of the brain in humans and other mammals
Pre-frontal cortex
The area of the cortex at the very front of the brain that specializes in anticipation, planning and impulse control
Axons
Fibers that extend from neurons and transmit electrochemical impulses from that neuron to the dendrites of other neurons
Dendrites
Fibers that extend from neurons and receive electrochemical impulses transmitted from other neurons via their axons
Synapses
The intersection between the axon of one neuron and the dendrite of other neurons
Neurotransmitters
Brain chemicals that carry information from the axon of a sending neuron to the dendrites of a receiving neuron
Transient exuberance
The increase in the number of dendrites that develop in an infant’s brain during the first two years of life
Pruning
Unused connections in the brain atrophy and die
Experience expectant
Brain functions that require certain basic common experiences in order to develop normally
Experience dependent
Brain functions that depend on variable experiences that may or may not develop in a particular person
Shaken baby syndrome
When an infant is forcefully shaken back-and-forth
Sensation
The response of a sensory system when it detects a stimulus
Perception
The mental processing of sensory information when the brain interprets a sensation
Binocular vision
The ability to focus both eyes
Motor skills
The learned ability to move some part of the body
Gross motor skills
Physical abilities involving large body movements
Fine motor skills
Physical abilities involving small body movements
Sudden infant death
An infants unexpected, sudden death
Immunization
Getting a shot - you know this means
Protein calorie malnutrition
A condition in which a person does not consume sufficient food
Stunting
The failure of children to grow to a normal height for their age
Wasting
The tendency for children to be severely underweight for their age
Marasmus
A disease of severe protein calorie malnutrition during early infancy in which growth stops, body tissues waste away and the infant eventually dies
Kwashiorkor
A disease of chronic malnutrition in which a protein calorie deficiency makes a child more vulnerable to other diseases
Sensorimotor intelligence
Piaget’s term for the way infants think during the first period of cognitive development
Object permanence
The realization that objects still exist even if they can no longer be seen, touched or heard
Little scientist
The stage-five toddler who experiments without imagining the consequences
Deferred imitation
A sequence in which an infant first perceives something done by someone else and then performs the same action hours or even days later
Information processing theory
A perspective that compares human thinking processes to computer analysis of data
Child directed speech
The high-pitched simplified and repetitive way adults speak to infants
Babbling
Repetition of certain syllables
Holophrase
A single word that is used to express a complete, meaningful thought
Naming explosion
A sudden increase in an infant’s vocabulary
Grammar
All the methods that languages use to communicate meaning
Mean length of utterance
The average number of meaningful sound combination in a typical sentence
Language acquisition
Chomsky’s term for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language
