Developing Through The Life Span Flashcards
Zygote
The fertilized egg; it enters a 2 week period of cell division and develops into an embryo.
Developmental psychology
A branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span
Embryo
The developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the second month.
Fetus
The developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception of birth.
Teratogens
Agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during parental development and cause harm.
Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)
Physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman’s heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions.
Habituation
Decreasing responsiveness with repeated simulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.
Maturation
Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.
Cognition
All the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
Schema
A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information.
Assimilation
Interpreting our new experience in terms of our existing shcemas.
Accommodation
Adapting our current understandings (shemas) to incorporate new information.
Sensorimotor stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities.
Object permanence
The awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.
Preoperational stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.
Conservation
The principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects.
Egocentrism
In Piaget’s theory, the preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.
Theory of mind
People’s idea about their own and others’ mental states - about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and the behaviors these might predict.
Concrete operational stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.
Formal operational stage
In Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.
Autism
A disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others’ state of mind.
Stranger anxiety
The fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.
Attachment
An emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.
Critical period
An optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development.
