Ch. 4 Physical Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood

Question 1

Brain Plasticity

Answer 1

A highly plastic cerebral cortex, in which many areas are not yet committed to specific functions, has a high capacity for learning. And if a part of the cortex is damaged, other parts can take over tasks it would have handled.

Question 2

Cephalocaudal Trend

Answer 2

“Head to Tail” - During the prenatal period, the head develops more rapidly than the lower part of the body.

Question 3

Cerebral Cortex

Answer 3

Surrounds the rest of the brain, resembling half of a shelled walnut. It is the largest brain structure, accounting for 85% of the brain’s weight and containing the greatest number of neurons and synapses.

Question 4

Prefrontal Cortex

Answer 4

In the front areas controlling body movement, is responsible for complex thought - consciousness and various “executive processes” including inhibition of impulses, integration of information, and memory, reasoning, planning, and problem-solving strategies.

Question 5

Classical Conditioning

Answer 5

A form of learning: A neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that leads to a reflexive response. Once a baby’s nervous system makes the connection between the two stimuli, the neutral stimulus produces the behavior itself. It helps infants recognize events that usually occur together and anticipate what will happen next.

Question 6

Conditioned Stimulus

Answer 6

When a neutral stimulus by itself produces a response similar to the reflexive response.

Question 7

Conditioned Response

Answer 7

The response a reflexive response elicits. Ex: Stroking the baby’s forehead outside the feeding situation (CS) results in sucking (CR).

Question 8

Contrast Sensitivity

Answer 8

Explains early pattern preferences. Contrast refers to the difference in the amount of light between adjacent regions in a pattern. If babies are sensitive to (can detect) the contrast between two or more patterns, they prefer the one with more contrast.

Question 9

Differentiation Theory

Answer 9

Infants actively search for invariant features of the environment – those that remain stable – in a constantly changing perceptual world. (Young babies search for features that stand out and orient toward faces).

Question 10

Dynamic Systems Theory of Motor Development

Answer 10

Mastery of motor skills involves acquiring increasingly complex systems of action. When the motor system, separate abilities blend together, each cooperating with others to produce more effective ways of exploring and controlling the environment.

Question 11

Experience-Dependent Brain Growth

Answer 11

Occurs throughout our lives. It consists of additional growth and refinement of established brain structures as a result of specific learning experiences that vary widely across individuals and cultures.

Question 12

Experience-Expectant Brain Growth

Answer 12

Refers to the young brain’s rapidly developing organization, which depends on ordinary experiences - opportunities to explore the environment, interact with people, and hear the language and other sounds.

Question 13

Glial Cells

Answer 13

Compose half of the brain’s volume and multiply rapidly from the end of pregnancy through the second year of life - a process that continues at a slower pace through middle childhood and accelerates again in adolescence.

Question 14

Habituation

Answer 14

Refers to a gradual reduction in the strength of response due to repetitive stimulation.

Question 15

Imitation

Answer 15

Copying the behavior of another person. In infancy, this extends to certain gestures like head and index finger movements.

Question 16

Intermodal Perception

Answer 16

We make sense of these running streams of light, sound, tactile, odor, and taste information, perceiving them as integrated wholes. Infants may expect sight, sound, and touch to go together.

Question 17

Kwashiorkor

Answer 17

A disease caused by an unbalanced diet very low in protein.

Question 18

Lateralization

Answer 18

The specialization of the two hemispheres. The left is better at processing info in a sequential analytic (piece-by-piece) way which is good for dealing with communicative info (language and emotion). The right is specialized for processing info in a holistic and integrative manner, ideal with spatial info and regulating negative emotion.

Question 19

Marasmus

Answer 19

A wasted condition of the body is caused by a diet low in all essential nutrients. It usually appears in the first year of life when the mother is too malnourished to produce enough breast milk.

Question 20

Mirror Neurons

Answer 20

Specialized cells in motor areas of the cerebral cortex in primates that may underlie early imitative capacities. Mirror neurons fire when a primate hears or sees action and when it carries out the action on its own.

Question 21

Myelination

Answer 21

The coating of neural fibers with an insulating fatty sheath improves the efficiency of message transfer.

Question 22

Neurons

Answer 22

Nerve cells that store and transmit information

Question 23

Neurotransmitters

Answer 23

Neurons send messages to one another by releasing chemicals that cross the synapse.

Question 24

Operant Conditioning

Answer 24

Infants act, or operate, on the environment, and stimuli that follow their behavior change the probability that the behavior will occur again.

Question 25

Perceptual Narrowing Effect

Answer 25

Perceptual sensitivity that becomes increasingly attuned with age to information most often encountered. Ex. Infants showing novelty preference only to human stimuli (in the test between human and monkey faces).

Question 26

Programmed Cell Death

Answer 26

Makes space for connective structures. As synapses form, many surrounding neurons die - 40-60%, depending on the brain region.

Question 27

Proximodistal Trend

Answer 27

Growth proceeds from “near to far” from the center of the body outward.

Question 28

Punishment

Answer 28

Removing the desirable stimulus or presenting an unpleasant one to decrease the occurrence of a response

Question 29

Recovery

Answer 29

During the habituation process - A new stimulus - a change in the environment. -causes responsiveness to return to a high level.

Question 30

Reinforcer

Answer 30

A stimulus that increases the occurrence of a response

Question 31

Statistical Learning Capacity

Answer 31

By analyzing the speech stream for patterns - repeatedly occurring sequence of sounds - babies acquire a stock of speech structures for which they will later learn meanings, long before they start to talk around 12 months.

Question 32

Synapses

Answer 32

Tiny gaps between neurons where fibers from different neurons come close together but do not touch.

Question 33

Synaptic Pruning

Answer 33

Unused neurons lose their synapses and neurons are returned to an uncommitted state so they can support future development.

Question 34

Unconditioned Stimulus

Answer 34

Before learning takes place, an unconditioned stimulus must produce a reflexive response.

Question 35

Unconditioned Response

Answer 35

A reflexive response produced by unconditioned stimuli. Breast milk (UCS) and Sucking (UCR).