Ch 4. Physical Development in Infancy Flashcards
Cephalocaudal Pattern
Developmental sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top—the head—with physical growth in size, weight, and feature differentiation gradually working from top to bottom.
Proximodistal Pattern
Developmental sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the extremities.
Frontal Lobe Purpose
Voluntary movement, thinking, personality, and intentionality or purpose.
Occipital Lobe
Vision
Temporal Lobe
An active role in hearing, language processing, and memory.
Parietal Lobe
Registering spatial location, attention, and motor control.
Lateralization
Specialization of function in one hemisphere of the cerebral cortex or the other.
Axon
Carries signals away from cell body
Dendrites
Carry signal towards cell body
Myelin Sheath
A layer of fat that encases axons, insulating them and lets electric signals travel faster along them.
Synapse
Tiny gap between neurons’ fibers
Myelination
The process of encasing axons with fat. Begins prenatally and goes until adolescence.
The Neuroconstructivist View
Perspective holding that biological processes and environmental conditions influence the brain’s development; the brain has plasticity and is context dependent; and development of the brain and cognitive development are closely linked.
The Neuroheredity View
Whatever brain your heredity had dealt you, you were essentially stuck with. (Outdated and made up.)
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
A condition that occurs when an infant stops breathing, usually during the night, and suddenly dies without an apparent cause.
Marasmus
A wasting away of body tissues in the infant’s first year, caused by severe protein-calorie deficiency.
Kwashiorkor
A condition caused by severe protein deficiency in which the child’s abdomen and feet become swollen with water; usually appears between 1 and 3 years of age.
Dynamics System Theory
The perspective on motor development that seeks to explain how motor behaviors are assembled for perceiving and acting.
Reflexes
Built-in reactions to stimuli that govern the newborn’s movements, which are automatic and beyond the newborn’s control.
Rooting Reflex
A newborn’s built-in reaction that occurs when the infant’s cheek is stroked or the side of the mouth is touched. In response, the infant turns his or her head toward the side that was touched, in an apparent effort to find something to suck.
Sucking Reflex
A newborn’s built-in reaction to automatically suck an object placed in its mouth. The sucking reflex enables the infant to get nourishment before he or she has associated a nipple with food and also serves as a self-soothing or self-regulating mechanism.
Moro Reflex
A neonatal startle response that occurs in reaction to a sudden, intense noise or movement. When startled, the newborn arches its back, throws its head back, and flings out its arms and legs. Then the newborn rapidly pulls its arms and legs close to the center of the body.
Grasping Reflex
A neonatal reflex that occurs when something touches the infant’s palms. The infant responds by grasping tightly.
Gross Motor Skills
Motor skills that involve large-muscle activities, such as walking.
Fine Motor Skills
Motor skills that involve more finely tuned movements, such as finger dexterity.
Sensation
The product of the interaction between information and the sensory receptors—the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin
Perception
The interpretation of what is sensed.
Ecological View
The view that perception functions to bring organisms in contact with the environment and to increase adaptation
Affordances
Opportunities for interaction offered by objects that fit within our capabilities to perform functional activities.
Visual Preference Method
A method used to determine whether infants can distinguish one stimulus from another by measuring the length of time they attend to different stimuli.
Habituation
Decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations of the stimulus.
Dishabituation
Recovery of a habituated response after a change in stimulation.
Size Constancy
The recognition that an object remains the same even though the retinal image of the object changes as you move toward or away from the object.
Shape Constancy
The recognition that an object’s shape remains the same even though its orientation to us changes.
Intermodal Perception
The ability to relate and integrate information from two or more sensory modalities, such as vision and hearing.
Esther Thelen
Proposed Dynamic Systems Theory.
Karen Adolph
Investigated how experienced and inexperienced crawling infants and walking infants go down steep slopes.
Rachel Keen
Studied infants in regard to tool use.
Eleanor and James Gibson
Created the ecological view.
Robert Fantz
Created an Infant “looking chamber” using visual preference method. Determined Infants look at different things for longer based on age.
