Prenatal, Newborn, Infancy, and Childhood

Question 1

developmental psychology

Answer 1

a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social changes throughout the lifespan

Question 2

zygote

Answer 2

the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and development into a embryo

Question 3

embryo

Answer 3

the developing human organism from about 2 weeks after fertilization through the 2nd month.

Question 4

fetus

Answer 4

the developing human organism from 9 weeks after the conception to birth.

Question 5

teratogens

Answer 5

agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach the embryo or fetus during prenatal development and cause harm.

Question 6

fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)

Answer 6

physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant women’s heavy drinking.

Question 7

rooting reflex

Answer 7

a baby’s tendency, when touched on the cheek, to turn towards the touch, open the mouth, and search for the nipple.

Question 8

habituation

Answer 8

decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner.

Question 9

maturation

Answer 9

biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.

Question 10

schema

Answer 10

a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information into selective groups.

Question 11

assimilation

Answer 11

interpreting one’s new experiences in terms on one’s existing schemas.

Ex. a baby sucks on a bottle the same way they suck on a nipple.

Question 12

accomodation

Answer 12

adapting on’e current understanding (schemas) to incorporate new information.

Ex. a baby changes the sucking motion on a pacifier then when sucking on a bottle or nipple.

Question 13

cognition

Answer 13

all the mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

Question 14

sensorimotor stage

Answer 14

in Piaget’s theory, the stage from birth to 2 during which infants know and relate to the world mostly in terms or their sensory impressions and motor activities (sensing and exploring)

Question 15

object permanence

Answer 15

the awareness that things continue to exist even when not perceived.

Question 16

preoperational stage

Answer 16

in Piaget’s theory, the stage from 2 to 7 years during which the child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend mental operations of concrete logic.

Question 17

conservation

Answer 17

the principle of concrete operational learning (Piaget), that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects

Question 18

egocentrism

Answer 18

in Piaget theory, the preoperational child’s difficultly taking another’s point of view. Perceiving the world only in terms of your own needs and wants.

Question 19

theory of mind

Answer 19

people’s ideas about their own and others’ mental states - about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict.

Question 20

autism

Answer 20

a disorder that appears in children and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding others’ states of mind.

Question 21

concrete operational stage

Answer 21

in Piaget’s theory, the stage of development from about 7 to 11 during which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events.

Question 22

formal operational stage

Answer 22

in Piaget’s theory, the stage of cognitive development beginning around 12 during which people begin to think logically about abstract concepts.

Question 23

stranger anxiety

Answer 23

the fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age.

Question 24

attachment

Answer 24

an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation.

Question 25

critical period

Answer 25

an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces proper development.

Question 26

imprinting

Answer 26

the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.

Question 27

basic trust

Answer 27

according to Erik Erikson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed dug infancy with bond to caregiver.

Question 28

self-concept

Answer 28

a sense of one’s identity and personal worth.