Parasomnias

Minor sleep disturbances such as walking and talking while still asleep; usually disappear without special intervention as children grow older

Nightmares

Frightening dreams that usually happen in the latter half of the night and that may awaken the child from sleep; often recalled by the child in the morning

Night Terrors

Physical thrashing and vocal distress, which do not awaken the child from sleep; almost never recalled by the child; usually occur in the hour or two after falling asleep

Enuresis

Bed-wetting, which is kinked to genetic factors and whic usually disappears withoug special treatment as children grow older

Myelination

The process through which neural axons become coated witha fatty sheath of myelin, providign insulation and enabling rapid transmission of neural impulses

Hemispheres

In the human brain, the term for the two halves of the cerebral cortex, becaus they look like "half-spheres"

Handedness

The preference that most people show for completing skilled actions with one hand rather than the other

Ambidextrous

Lack of preference for right or left hand; ability to use either hand equally well

Gross motor skills

Motor skills that use the large muscles; examples are running and jumping

Fine motor skills

Motor skills that involve the use of small muscles; examples are fastening buttons and eating with a spoon

Activity Level

The amount of sheer physical movement that a child engages in per unit of time

Obesity

An overweight condition defined as people who weigh at least 30% more than the ideal weight for their height and age; in early childhood, those weighing more than 95% of children of the same age and gender

Booster seat

A type of safety seat used in a motor vehicle to restrain children who weigh 40-80 pounds, usually between 8 and 10 years of age

Ozone

A highly reactive form of oxygen that results primarily form theaction of sunlight on hydrocarbons emitted in feul combustion (e.g., from cars); a principal component of outdoor air polution, or smog

Environmental Tobacco Smoke

Smoke from cigarettes and other tobacco products that exists in the environments of smokers; often called secondhand smoke

Neurotoxins

Chemical substances that are harmful to children's developing nervous systems, such as lead and mercury

Asthma

A condition that impairs breathing due to narrowing and inflammation of the air passageways triggered by allergens or other environmental substances

Allergens

Specific substances, such as pollens and evvironmental tobacco smoke, that may trigger allergic reactions among individuals who are allergic to them

Food Intolerance

A negative reaction to specific foods

Egocentrism

Children's inablility to take perspectives different from their own

Representational Skill

The ability to recognize that one object stands for another, as, for example, pretending a banana is a telephone

Dual representation

The ability to mentally represent bothe a symbol and its referent

Sociodramatic play

A type of play that involves enactment of roles and stories, such as "You be the dad and I'll be the mom, and we'll go to the grocery store, okay?"

Three Mountains Task

A task invented by Piaget and Inhelder, in which children are asked to look at a model of a landscape marked by hills and mountains and tell how it looks from a perspective different from their own

Animism

The attribution of mental activity such as thoughts, feelings, and wishes to inanimate objects such as clouds, rivers, or stones

Conservation

The fact that some properties of objects remain the same, even while other properties are changing; in Piaget's theory, preoperational children do not grasp this concept

Horizontal décalage

Piaget's term for the fact that in contrast to theoretical predictions, children master skills attributed by his theory to the preoperational stage at varied ages

Recognition

The ability to identify an object, person, or quality that was encountered before (e.g., Sally recognized the picture of her sister on the bulletin board)

Recall

The ability to reproduce material from memory (e.g., when he was asked, Tommy recalled what kinds of foods he had eaten for lunch)

Metamemory

Knowledge about memory itself--about memory tasks, strategies, and conditions

Scripts

General outlines of events and the order in which they occur, used to organize thinking and memory about familiar occurences, such as eating in a fast-food restaurant

Theory of mind

The young child's ideas about the nature of mental activities, especially those of people around them

Phonemic awareness

The ability to hear and manipulate the sounds of spoken language

Dialogic reading

Shared book reading between children and parents in which parents ask open-ended questions, repeat and expand on children's utterances, and encourage children's speech

Cardinality

The concept that the last number in a counting sequence represents the quanity of objects in a set

Private Speech

Children's use of language to plan and direct their own behavior, especially when undertaking difficult tasks

Cooperative Learning

An educational technique in which children work together in small groups to solve problems or complete tasks

Syntax

 The grammatical structure of language, including (among many other elements) the ways in which past versus present tense or plural versus singular are maked by a language

Mutual Exclusivity Bias

Young children's expectation that objects have only one label and hence that words refer to separate, non-overlapping categories

Syntactic Bootstrapping

Children's ability to use the grammatical information in language (syntax) to help them work out the most likely meanings of new words

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful grammatical unit, such as an s added to a noun to make it plural

Semantic Bootstrapping

Children's ability to use the semantic information in language to help them work out the most likely grammatical structure of new utterances

Pragmatics

The use of language for a variety of goals, such as persuasion, in different circumstances

Late talkers

Chldren who, by ther 2nd birthday, use fewer than 50 words and who do not combine words into two- or three- word utterances

Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales

An individual test of intelligence that can be given to young children, originally written by Alfred Binet and revised by Lewis Terman of Stanford University

Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI)

A popular test of young children's intelligence

Head Start

A federally funded program that provides young children from low-income homes with a year or two of preschool education, as well as with nutritional and medical services

Seasme Street

An educational television program intended to teach preliteracy and pasic mathematical concepts to young children

Self-esteem

The overall sense of one's own value as a person

Emotional display rules

Cultural or subcultural rules for the display of emotional reactions to events or people that specify when and under what circumstances nonverbal expressions of emotion are considered appropriate

Gender identity

A person's fundamental sense of self as male or female

Cognitive theory of gender development

Kohlberg's theory that children's ideas about gender organize their gender-related behavior

Self-socialization

The process of matching one's behavior and activities to those associated with one's gender

Gender permanence

The understanding that a person's gender remains the same over time: A girl grows up to become a woman, and a boy grows up to become a man

Gender constancy

The understanding that a person's gender remains the same even if superficial characteristics such as clothing, hairstyle, or activities undergo change; for instance, a boy remains male evein if he puts on a dress or plays witha doll

Gender stereotypes

Preconceived expectations about the preferences, attitudes, and behaviors of males and females

Gender schema theory

Bem's theory that children's understanding of gender develops as they acquie mental representations of male and female activities, roles, and preferences

Permissive parenting

A style of parenting that combines little control or guidance of children with high levels of communication, nurturance, and warmth

Authoritarian parenting

A style of parenting that combines high standards and strict punishment with low levels of communication, nurturance, and warmth

Authoritative parenting

A style of parenting win which parents set limits and provide guidance for chldren's behavior, but also provide much support and nurturance

Disengaged Parenting

A style of parenting in which parents (often those who are overwhelmed by their own problems) set few limits or standards and provide little in the way i.e.of nurturance or support for their children; at the extreme, disengaged parenting becomes a form of child maltreatment (i.e. neglect)

Solitary play

A form of play in whicha  child plays alone, apparently without awareness of other children nearby

Onlooker play

A form of play in which one child watches the activities of another child or a group of children

Parallel play

A form of play in which children play with similar objects or toys, often in proximity to one another, but without interacting

Associative play

A form of play in which a child shares and participates with others

Cooperative play

A form of play in which children play together in a social fashion

Physical aggression

Behavior intended to harm another person by inflicting pain or injury

Relational aggression

Behavior intended to hurt another person through damage to peer relationships

Prosocial behavior

Cooperative, friendly, and other socially approved behavior

Morality of constraint

A mode of moral reasoning in which behavior is constrained by the consequences of actions and morality is not subject to change

Autonomous Morality

A mode of moral reasoning in which moral rules are seen as a product of social ineraction and agreement

Moral judgements

Judgements about right and wrong, fairness, and justice; for instance, answers to questions about whether it is right to strike another person

Social-conventional judgements

Judgements based on customary ways of doing things; for instance, answers to questions about whether it is right to eat with one's fingers versus with a fork

Corporal punishment

Use of physical methods, such as slapping or spanking,  ot discourage undesirable behavior

Personal judgements

Judgements based on individual preferences; for instance, answers to questions about whether it is better to eat vanilla or chocolate ice cream