chapter 1 Flashcards
the scientific study of the patterns of growth, change, and stability that occur from conception through adolescence.
Child development
The field of child development includes three major topics or approaches:
- Physical development
- Cognitive development
- Social and personality development
Development involving the body’s physical makeup, including the brain, nervous system, muscles, and senses and the need for food, drink, and sleep
.
Physical development
Development involving the ways that growth and change in intellectual capabilities influence a person’s behavior
Cognitive development
Development involving the ways that the enduring characteristics that differentiate one person from another change over the life span
Personality development
The way in which individuals’ interactions with others and their social relationships grow, change, and remain stable over the course of life
Social development
is a shared notion of reality, one that is widely accepted but is a function of society and culture at a given time.
social construction
childhood and adolescence into broad age ranges:
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).
an example of history-graded influences, which are biological and environmental influences associated with a particular historical moment.
Cohort effects
biological and environmental influences that are similar for individuals in a particular age group, regardless of when or where they are raised.
age-graded influences
Child development takes a scientific approach to development, and it considers __________ as well as change, in the lives of children and adolescents.
stability
The field of child development includes three major topics or approaches: physical development, __________ development, and social and personality development.
cognitive
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.
cultural
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.
cohort
English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) considered a child to be a
tabula rasa—which is Latin for “blank slate.”
French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712– 1778)
argued that children were
noble savages, meaning that they were born with an innate sense of right and wrong and morality.
Gradual development in which achievements at one level build on those of previous levels
Continuous change
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
.
Discontinuous change
the presence of certain kinds of environmental stimuli enable development to proceed normally, or when exposure to certain stimuli results in abnormal development.
critical period
the degree to which a developing behavior or physical structure is modifiable.
plasticity,
represents the optimal period for particular capacities to emerge, and children are particularly sensitive to environmental influences.
sensitive period,
The process of the predetermined unfolding of genetic information
Maturation
One key issue in child development today includes the comparison and contrast between continuous versus __________ change.
.
Discontinuous
Another important issue involves the understanding of critical and __________ periods.
sensitive
The relative influence of nature versus __________ on development illustrates a key question in child development.
nurture
