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Definition
| Latin for "head to tail." During the prenatal period, the head develops more rapidly than the lower part of the body. |
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| Growth proceeds from "near to far," or from the center of the body outward. |
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| Measure of development of the bones of the body. Best estimate of a child's physical maturity. |
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Definition
| Special growth centers that appear at the extreme ends of each of the long bones of the body. |
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| The "soft spots" or six gaps that the bones of the skull are separated by at birth. |
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| Nerve cells that store and transmit information. |
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| Tiny gaps where fibers from different neurons come close together but do not touch. |
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| Chemicals that cross the synapse and are released by neurons to send messages to one another. |
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Definition
| Returns neurons not needed at the moment to an uncommitted state so they can support future development; how neurons that are seldom stimulated lose their synapses. |
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Definition
| Make up about half the brain's volume, and are responsible for myelination. Cause of the dramatic increase in brain size during the first two years. |
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Definition
| Coating of neural fibers with an insulating fatty sheath (myelin) that improves the efficiency of message transfer. |
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Definition
| Surrounds the rest of the brain, resembling half of a shelled walnut. The largest brain structure, accounting for 85% of the brain's weight and containing the greatest number of neurons and synapses. |
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Definition
| Lying in front of areas controlling body movement, is responsible for thought- in particular, for consciousness, inhibition of impulses, integration of information, and use of memory, reasoning, planning, and problem-solving strategies. |
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Definition
| Specialization of the two hemispheres. |
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Term
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Definition
| A highly plastic cerebral cortex, in which many areas are not yet committed to specific functions, has a high-capactiy for learning. And if part of the cortex is damaged, other parts can take over the tasks it would have handled. |
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Term
| Experience-Expectant Brain Growth |
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Definition
| Young brain's rapidly developing organization, which deeds on ordinary experiences like opportunities to see and touch objects, to hear language and other sounds, and to move about and explore the environment. |
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Term
| Experience-Dependent Brain Growth |
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Definition
| Occurs throughout our lives. Consists of additional growth and the refinement of established brain structures as a result of specific learning experiences that vary widely across individuals and cultures. |
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Term
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Definition
| A wasted condition of the body caused by a diet low in all essential nutrients. It usually appears in the first year of life when a baby's mother is too malnourished to produce enough breast milk and bottle-feeding is also inadequate. |
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Term
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Definition
| Disease caused by an unbalanced diet very low in protein. Usually strikes after weaning, between 1 and 3 years of age. |
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Definition
| Term applied to infants whose weight, height, and head circumference are substantially below age-related growth norms and who are withdrawn and apathetic. In as many as half such cases, a disturbed parent-infant relationship contributes to this failure to grow normally. |
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Definition
| Form of learning possible in the young infant, where a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that leads to a reflexive response. |
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Term
| Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) |
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Definition
| A stimulus that leads to a reflexive response. |
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Term
| Unconditioned Response (UCR) |
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Definition
| A reflexive response that is produced by an unconditioned stimulus. |
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Term
| Conditioned Stimules (CS) |
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Definition
| A neutral stimulus that, through pairing with an UCS, leads to a new, CR. |
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Term
| Conditioned Response (CR) |
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Definition
| A new response produced by a CS that is similar to the UCR. |
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Term
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Definition
| Infants act on the environment, and stimuli that follow their behavior change the probability that the behavior will occur again. |
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Definition
| A stimulus that increases the occurrence of a response. |
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Term
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Definition
| Removing a desirable stimulus or presenting an unpleasant one to decrease the occurrence of a response. |
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Term
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Definition
| Refers to a gradual reduction in the strength of a response due to repetitive stimulation. |
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Definition
| A new stimulus- a change in the environment -causes responsiveness to return to a high level. |
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Definition
| Copying the behavior of another person. |
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Definition
| Specialized cells in many areas of the cerebral cortex in primates that underlie the ability to imitate by firing identically when a primate hears or sees an action and when it carries out that action on its own. |
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Term
| Dynamic Systems Theory of Motor Development |
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Definition
| Mastery of motor skills involves acquiring increasingly complex systems of action. When motor skills work as a system, separate abilities blend together, each cooperating with others to produce more effective ways of exploring and controlling the environment. |
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Definition
| Poorly coordinated swipes made my newborns. |
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Definition
| A clumsy motion in which the young infant's fingers close against the palm. |
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Term
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Definition
| Well-coordinated motion where infants use the thumb and index finger. |
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Term
| Statistical Learning Capacity |
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Definition
| By analyzing the speech stream for patterns (repeatedly occurring sequences of sounds) they acquire a stock of speech structures for which they will alter learn meanings, long before they start to talk around 12 months. |
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Term
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Definition
| General principle that explains early pattern preferences. Contrast refers to the difference in the amount of light between adjacent regions in a pattern. If babies can detect (are sensitive to) the contrast in two or more patterns, they prefer the one with more contrast. |
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Term
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Definition
| Perception of an object's size as the same, despite changes in the size of its retinal image. |
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Term
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Definition
| Perception of an object's shape as stable, despite changes in the shape projected on the retina. |
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Term
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Definition
| We make sense of these running streams of light, sound, tactile, odor, and taste information, perceiving them as integrated wholes. For example, we know an object's shape is the same whether we see it or touch it, that lip movements are closely coordinated with the sound of a voice, and that dropping a rigid object on a hard surface will cause a sharp, banging sound. |
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Term
| Amodal Sensory Properties |
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Definition
| Information that is not specific to a single modality, but that overlaps two or more sensory systems. |
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Term
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Definition
| Infants actively search for invariant features of the environment (those that remain stable) in a constantly changing perceptual world. |
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Term
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Definition
| The action possibilities that a situation offers an organism with certain motor capabilities. |
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