Chapter 3 Flashcards
2 year olds are ______ their adult height and are _______ their adult weight (4x their birthweight)
1/2 ; 1/5
Norm
An average, or standard, measurement, calculated from the measurements of many individuals within a specific group or population
In terms of percentiles, what is “average”?
50th percentile
Head-Sparing
A biological mechanism that protects the brain when malnutrition disrupts body growth. The brain is the last part of the body to be damaged by malnutrition.
Brain circumference increases from _____ inches to _____ inches (doubling brain volume) from birth to the age of 2
14 ; 19
Central Nervous System (CNS)
The brain and spinal cord
Neuron
One of billions of nerve cells in the CNS, especially in the brain. 100 billion neurons exist at birth, 70% of which exist in the cortex at birth.
Cortex
The outer layers of the brain in humans and other mammals. Most thinking, feeling, and sensing involve the cortex.
Prefrontal Cortex
The area of the cortex at the very front of the brain that specializes in anticipation, planning, and impulse control. It’s the final part of the brain to mature.
Auditory Cortex
Part of the cortex that specializes in heading.
Visual Cortex
Part of the cortex that specializes in vision.
Axon
A fiber that extends from a neuron and transmits electrochemical impulses from that neuron to the dendrites of other neurons.
Dendrite
A fiber that extends from a neuron and receives electrochemical impulses transmitted from other neurons via their axons.
Synapses
The intersection between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites of other neurons
Neurotransmitter
A brain chemical that carries information from the axon of a sending neuron to the dendrites of a receiving neuron.
Synaptic Gap
The pathway across which the neurotransmitters carry information form the axon of the sending neuron to the dendrites of the receiving neuron.
Dendrites increase by ___ times from birth to the age of two
5
How many synapses are present at age two?
~100 trillion, with 40,000 formed every second in infants
Transient Exuberance
The great but temporary increase in the number of dendrites that develop in an infant’s brain during the first 2 years of life
Pruning
When applied to brain development, the process by which unused connections in the brain atrophy and die.
Follows transient exuberance.
Makes room for more dendrite formation, which leads to synapses which then lead to more complex thinking
Fusiform Face Area
Area of the brain adept at facial recognition
Own-Race Effect
Babies are more accurate at differentiating faces from their own ethnic group
Shaken Baby Syndrome
Life-threatening injury that occurs when an infant is forcefully shaken back and forth, a motion that ruptures blood vessels in the brain and breaks neural connections.
Self-Righting
The inborn drive to remedy a developmental deficit; literally, to return to sitting or standing upright after being tipped over. People of all ages have self-righting impulses, for emotional as well as physical imbalance.
Sleeping through the night is a sign of what?
Brain maturation
How many hours of sleep should a 0-2 month old get every day?
14 1/4 hours
How many hours of sleep should a 3-5 month old get every day?
13 1/4 hours
How many hours of sleep should a 6-17 month old get every day?
12 3/4 hours
Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep
A stage of sleep characterized by flickering eyes behind closed lids, dreaming, and rapid brain waves.
Half of full term newborn sleep is REM sleep.
Co-Sleeping
A custom in which parents and their children (usually infants) sleep together in the same room
“Ghosts in the Nursery”
Phenomenon where every adult, affected by their early experiences, seeks to avoid mistakes made by their parents
Sensation
The response of a sensory system (ears, eyes, tongue, nose, skin) when it detects a stimulus
Perception
The mental processing of sensory information when the brain interprets a sensation
When in pregnancy does hearing develop?
3rd trimester
Which sense is the least mature at birth?
Vision, newborn babies are legally blind
Binocular Vision
The ability to focus the two eyes in a coordinated manner in order to see one image
Motor Skills
The learned abilities to move some part of the dogs in actions ranging from a large leap to the flicker of an eyelid.
“Motor” refers to the muscle movements
Gross Motor Skills
Physical abilities involving large body movements, such as walking and jumping.
“Gross” means big in this context.
How do gross motor skills proceed? (Order?)
Cephalocaudal (head-down) and proximodistal (center-out) direction
Fine Motor Skills
Physical abilities involving small body movements, especially of the hands and fingers, such as drawing.
“Fine” means small in this context.
Immunization
A process that stimulates the body’s immune system to defend against attack by a particular contagious disease. Immunization a may be accomplished naturally (by having the disease) or through vaccination
Herd Immunity
Phenomenon where, if usually 90% of a population is immunized, the disease doesn’t spread to those who are vulnerable
Colostrum
Thick, high-calorie fluid secreted by the mother’s breasts for about three days after birth
Protein-Calorie Malnutrition
A condition in which a person doesn’t consume sufficient food of any kind. This deprivation can result in several illnesses, severe weight loss, and even death.
1 in 3 children in developing countries suffer from this…
Protein-Calorie Malnutrition
Stunting
The failure of children to grow to fa normal height for their age due to malnutrition
How do chronically malnourished children/infants suffer? (3 answers)
- brains may not develop normally
- no body reserves to protect them against common diseases
- some diseases are the result of malnutrition (marasmus & kwashiorkor)
Marasmus
Disease of sever protein-calorie malnutrition during early infancy, in which growth stops, body tissues waste away, and the infant eventually dies
Kwashiorkor
Disease of chronic malnutrition during childhood, in which a protein deficiency makes the child more vulnerable to diseases, such as measles, diarrhea, and influenza
Sensorimotor Intelligence
Piaget’s term for the way infants think- by using their senses and motor skills- during the first period of cognitive development
Period One - Stages 1 & 2
- Stage of reflexes (0-1 mo)
2. First acquired adaptations/Stage of first habits (1-4 mo)
Second Period, Stages 3 & 4
- (4-8 mo) making interesting sights last
4. New adaptation and anticipation (8-12 mo)
Object Permanence
The realization that objects (and people) still exist even if they can no longer be seen, touched, or heard
Period Three, Stage 5 & 6
- New means through active experimentation (12-18 mo)
6. New means through mental combinations (18-24 mo)
Little Scientist
Stage 5 toddler (12-18 mo) who experiments without anticipating the results, using trial and error in active and creative exploration
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, by analogy, to computer analysis of data, including sensory input, connections, stored memories, and output
Reminder Session
A perceptual experience that is intended to help a person recollect an idea, thing, or experience without testing whether the person remembers it at the moment
Child-Directed Speech (AKA baby talk or motherese)
The high-pitched, simplified, and repeated way adults speak to infants
Babbling
The extended repetition of certain syllables that begins when babies are between 6 and 9 months
Holophrase
A single word that’s used to express a complete, meaningful thought
Naming Explosion
A sudden incense in an infant’s vocabulary, especially in the number of nouns, that begins at about 18 months.
Grammar
All the methods- word order, verb form, etc- that languages use to communicate meaning, apart from the words themselves
Language Acquisition Device (LAD)
Chomsky’s term for a hypothesized mental structure that enables humans to learn language, including the basic aspects of grammar, vocabulary, and intonation
Hybrid Theory
Perspective that combines various aspects of different theories to explain how language, or any other developmental phenomenon, occurs
Birthweight doubles by ______ and triples by ______
4 months ; 1 year
