chapter 1

Question 1

the scientific study of the patterns of growth, change, and stability that occur from conception through adolescence.

Answer 1

Child development

Question 2

The field of child development includes three major topics or approaches:

Answer 2

• Physical development
• Cognitive development
• Social and personality development

Question 3

Development involving the body’s physical makeup, including the brain, nervous system, muscles, and senses and the need for food, drink, and sleep

.

Answer 3

Physical development

Question 4

Development involving the ways that growth and change in intellectual capabilities influence a person’s behavior

Answer 4

Cognitive development

Question 5

Development involving the ways that the enduring characteristics that differentiate one person from another change over the life span

Answer 5

Personality development

Question 6

The way in which individuals’ interactions with others and their social relationships grow, change, and remain stable over the course of life

Answer 6

Social development

Question 7

is a shared notion of reality, one that is widely accepted but is a function of society and culture at a given time.

Answer 7

social construction

Question 8

childhood and adolescence into broad age ranges:

Answer 8

the prenatal period (the period from conception to birth), infancy and toddlerhood (birth to age 3), the preschool period (ages 3 to 6), middle childhood (ages 6 to 12), and adolescence (ages 12 to 20).

Question 9

an example of history-graded influences, which are biological and environmental influences associated with a particular historical moment.

Answer 9

Cohort effects

Question 10

biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group, regardless of when or where they are raised.

Answer 10

age-graded influences

Question 11

Child development takes a scientific approach to development, and it considers __________ as well as change, in the lives of children and adolescents.

Answer 11

stability

Question 12

The field of child development includes three major topics or approaches: physical development, __________ development, and social and personality development.

Answer 12

cognitive

Question 13

Specialists in child development must take into consideration broad __________ factors and account for ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, and gender differences if they are to understand how people change and grow throughout the life span.

Answer 13

cultural

Question 14

Major social events have similar influences on members of a particular __________, a group of people born at around the same time in the same place.

Answer 14

cohort

Question 15

English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) considered a child to be a

Answer 15

tabula rasa—which is Latin for “blank slate.”

Question 16

French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712– 1778)

argued that children were

Answer 16

noble savages, meaning that they were born with an innate sense of right and wrong and morality.

Question 17

Gradual development in which achievements at one level build on those of previous levels

Answer 17

Continuous change

Question 18

Development that occurs in distinct steps or stages, with each stage bringing about behavior that is assumed to be qualitatively different from behavior at earlier stages

.

Answer 18

Discontinuous change

Question 19

the presence of certain kinds of environmental stimuli enable development to proceed normally, or when exposure to certain stimuli results in abnormal development.

Answer 19

critical period

Question 20

the degree to which a developing behavior or physical structure is modifiable.

Answer 20

plasticity,

Question 21

represents the optimal period for particular capacities to emerge, and children are particularly sensitive to environmental influences.

Answer 21

sensitive period,

Question 22

The process of the predetermined unfolding of genetic information

Answer 22

Maturation

Question 23

One key issue in child development today includes the comparison and contrast between continuous versus __________ change.

.

Answer 23

Discontinuous

Question 24

Another important issue involves the understanding of critical and __________ periods.

Answer 24

sensitive

Question 25

The relative influence of nature versus __________ on development illustrates a key question in child development.

Answer 25

nurture