Chapter 3 Key Terms

Question 0

A 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.

Answer 0

Shaken baby syndrome

Question 1

An average or standard, measurement, calculated from the measurements of many individuals within a specific group or population.

Answer 1

Norm

Question 2

An unlearend, involuntary action or movement emitted in response to a particular stimulus.
An automatic response that is built into the nervous system and occurs without conscious thought.

Answer 2

Reflex

Question 3

Physical abilities involving large body movements, such as walking and jumping.

Answer 3

Gross motor skills

Question 4

Physical abilities involving small body movements, especially of the hands and fingers, such as drawing and picking up a coin.

Answer 4

Fine motor skills

Question 5

The response of a sensory system (eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose) when it detects a stimulus.

Answer 5

Sensation

Question 6

The mental processing of sensory information when the brain interprets a sensation.

Answer 6

Perception

Question 7

A process that stimulate’s the body’s immune system to defend against attack by a particular contagious disease. It can be accomplished either naturally (by having the disease) or through vaccination (often through an injection).
- Also called inoculation or vaccination

Answer 7

Immunization

Question 8

A situation in which a seemingly healthy infant, at least 2 months of age, suddenly stops breathing and dies unexpectedly while asleep.

Answer 8

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

Question 9

A custom in which parents and their children (usually infants) sleep together in the same bed (also called bed-sharing).

Answer 9

Co-sleeping

Question 10

Piaget’s term for the way infants think - by using their senses and motor skills - during the first period of cognitive development.

Answer 10

Sensorimotor intelligence

Question 11

Piaget’s term for a type of adaptation in which new experiences are interpreted to fit into old ideas.

Answer 11

Assimilation

Question 12

Piaget’s term for a type of adaptation in which old ideas are restructured to include new experiences.

Answer 12

Accommodation

Question 13

The realization that objects still exist when they can no longer be seen, touched or heard.

Answer 13

Object permanence

Question 14

The stage 5 toddler (age 12 to 18 months) who experiments without anticipating the results, using trial and error in active and creative exploration.

Answer 14

“little scientist”

Question 15

A perspective that compares human thinking processes, by analogy, to computer analysis of data, including sensory input, connections, stored memories and output.

Answer 15

Information-processing theory

Question 16

The high-pitched, simplified, and repetitive way adults speak to infants (also called baby talk or motherese)

Answer 16

Child-directed speech

Question 17

A sudden increase in an infant’s vocabulary, especially in the number of nouns, that begins at about 18 months of age.

Answer 17

Naming explosion

Question 18

A single word that is used to express a complete, meaningful thought.

Answer 18

Holophrase