Chp11-P358-P379 Flashcards
Developmental psychology?
concerned with interaction between physical and psychological processes and with stages of growth from conception throughout the entire life span.
Normative investigation?
A research effort designed to describe what is characteristic of a specific age or developmental stage.
Developmental Age?
Chronological age at which most children show a particular level of physical or mental development.
Longitudinal Design?
A research design in which the same participants are observed repeatedly, sometimes over many years.
Cross sectional design?
Research method in which groups of participants of different chronological ages are observed and compared at a given time.
Physical development?
the bodily changes, maturation and growth that occur in an organism, starting with conception and continuing across the life span.
Zygote?
The single cell that results when a sperm fertilises an egg.
Germinal stage?
The first two weeks of prenatal development following conception.
Embryonic stage?
The second stage of prenatal development, lasting from the third week through to 8 weeks after conception.
Foetal stage?
the third stage of prenatal development, lasting from the ninth week through to the birth of the child.
Teratogan
Environmental factors such as diseases and drugs that cause structural abnormalities in a developing foetus.
maturation?
The continuing influence of heredity throughout development; the age related physical and behavioural changes characteristic of a species.
Puberty?
The proces through which sexual maturity is attained.
Menarche?
The onset of menstruation
Cognitive development?
the development of processes of knowing, including imagining, perceiving, reasoning and problem solving.
Scheme?
Piaget’s term for a cognitive structure that develops as infants and young children learn to interpret the world and adapt to their environment.
Assimilation?
According to Piaget, the process whereby new cognitive elements are fitted in with old elements or modified to fit more easily.
Accommodation
Where existing schemes change to accommodate new information learnt by a child.
sensorimotor stage?
The period between birth and age 2 during which an infant’s knowledge of the world is limited to their sensory perceptions and motor activities.
Object permanence?
The recognition that objects exist independently of an individual’s action or awareness; an important cognitive acquisition of infancy
Preoperational stage?
The period between ages 2 and 7 during which a child learns to use language. During this stage, children do not yet understand concrete logic.
Egocentrism?
IN cognitive development, the inability of a young child at the preoperational stage to take the perspective of another person.
Centration?
A thought pattern common dujring the beginning of the preoperational stage of cognitive development in a child.
The tendency to have their attention captured by the more perceptually striking features of objects.
Conservation?
According to Piaget, the understanding that physical properties do not change when nothing is added or taken away, even though appearances may change.
Foundational theory?
A framework for initial understanding formulated by children to explain their experiences of the world.
