Lifespan Development: Chapter 4 Flashcards
Cephalocaudal Pattern
The sequence in which the earliest growth always occurs at the top—the head—with physical growth in size, weight, and feature differentiation gradually working from top to bottom.
Proximodistal Pattern
The sequence in which growth starts at the center of the body and moves toward the extremities.
Lateralization
Specialization of function in one hemisphere of the cerebral cortex or the other.
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)
A condition that occurs when an infant stops breathing, usually during the night, and suddenly dies without an apparent cause.
Marasmus
A wasting away of body tissues in the infant’s first year, caused by severe protein-calorie deficiency.
Kwashiorkor
A condition caused by severe protein deficiency in which the child’s abdomen and feet become swollen with water; usually appears between 1 to 3 years of age.
Dynamic Systems Theory
The perspective on motor development that seeks to explain how motor behaviors are assembled for perceiving and acting.
Reflexes
Built-in reactions to stimuli that govern the newborn’s movements, which are automatic and beyond the newborn’s control.
Rooting Reflex
A newborn’s built-in reaction that occurs when the infant’s cheek is stroked or the side of the mouth is touched. In response, the infant turns his or her head toward the side that was touched, in an apparent effort to find something to suck.
Sucking Reflex
A newborn’s built-in reaction to automatically suck an object placed in its mouth. The sucking reflex enables the infant to get nourishment before he or she has associated a nipple with food and also serves as a self-soothing or self-regulating mechanism.
Moro Reflex
A neonatal startle response that occurs in reaction to a sudden, intense noise or movement. When startled, the newborn arches its back, throws its head back, and flings out its arms and legs. Then the newborn rapidly closes its arms and legs to the center of the body.
Grasping Reflex
A neonatal reflex that occurs when something touches the infant’s palms. The infant responds by grasping tightly.
Gross Motor Skills
Motor skills that involve large- muscle activities, such as walking.
Fine Motor Skills
Motor skills that involve more finely tuned movements, such as finger dexterity.
Sensation
The product of the interaction between information and the sensory receptors—the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin.
Perception
The interpretation of what is sensed.
Ecological View
The view that perception functions to bring organisms in contact with the environment and to increase adaptation.
Affordances
Opportunities for interaction offered by objects that fit within our capabilities to perform functional activities.
Visual Preference Method
A method used to determine whether infants can distinguish one stimulus from another by measuring the length of time they attend to different stimuli.
Habituation
Decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations of the stimulus.
Dishabituation
Recovery of a habituated response after a change in stimulation.
Size Constancy
The recognition that an object remains the same even though the retinal image of the object changes as you move toward or away from the object.
Shape Constancy
The recognition that an object’s shape remains the same even though its orientation to us changes.
Intermodal Perception
The ability to relate and integrate information from two or more sensory modalities, such as vision and hearing.
Charles Nelson
A researcher who is making strides in the study of brain development during infancy.
T. Berry Brazelton
Leader in childhood development research who created the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment scale.
Arnold Gesell
Believed that motor development comes about in a fixed order through maturation. However, later studies revealed that these developmental milestones are not as rigid.
Esther Thelen
The dynamic systems theory states that infants assemble motor skills for perceiving and acting.
Karen Adolph
Children are accident-prone at early stages of locomotion because they have not yet integrated perceptual information with the development of a new motor behavior.
Eleanor Gibson
The ecological view suggests that we directly perceive information that exists in the world around us.
Robert Fantz
Used looking chambers to study infants’ visual preferences.
William James
Newborns experience a “blooming, buzzing” world of confusion.
Richard Walk
Created the visual cliff experiment with Eleanor Gibson.
