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| an average, or standard, measurement, calculated from the measurements of many individuals within a specific group or population |
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| a point on a ranking scale of 0 to 100. The 50th percentile is the midpoint; half the people in the population rank higher and half rank lower. |
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| the biological protection of the brain when malnutrition affects body growth. The brain is the last part of the body to be affected by malnutrition. |
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| rapid eye movement sleep, a stage of sleep characterized by flickering eyes behind closed lids, dreaming and rapid brain waves. Newborns have a high proportion of this. |
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| a custom in which parents and their children (usually infants) sleep together. |
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| one of the billions of nerve cells in the central nervous system, especially the brain. |
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| the outer layers of the brain in humans and other mammals. Most thinking, feeling and sensing involve the cortex. |
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| a fiber that extends from a neuron and transmits electrochemical impulses from that neuron to the dendrites of other neurons. |
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| a fiber that extends from a neuron and receives electrochemical impulses transmitted from other neurons via their axons. |
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| the intersection between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites of other neurons. |
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| the great increase in the number of dendrites that occurs in an infant's brain during the first two years of life. |
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| refers to brain functions that require certain basic common experiences (which an infant can be expected to have)in order to develop normally. |
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| refers to brain functions that depend on particular, variable experiences and that therefore may or may not develop in a particular infant. |
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| the area of cortex at the front of the brain that specializes in anticipation, planning, and impulse control. |
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| a life-threatening condition that occurs when an infant is forcefully shaken back and forth, rupturing blood vessels in the brain and breaking neural connections |
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| the inborn drive to remedy a developmental deficit |
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| a time when a certain kind of growth or development is most likely to happen or happens most readily |
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| the response of a sensory system (eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose) when it detects a stimulus |
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| the mental processing of sensory information, when the brain interprets a sensation. |
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| the ability to focus the two eyes in a coordinated manner in order to see one image |
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| the learned ability to move some part of the body, from a large leap to a flicker of the eyelid. |
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| a responsive movement that seems automatic because it almost always occurs in reaction to a particular stimulus. Newborns have many, some of which disappear with maturation. |
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| when infants feed are stroked, their toes fan upward |
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| when infants are held upright with their feet touching a flat surface, they move their legs as if to walk |
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| when they are laid horizontally on their stomachs, infants stretch out their arms and legs |
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| when something touches infants' palms, they grip it tightly |
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| when someone startles them, perhaps by banging on the table they are lying on, infants fling their arms outward and then bring them together on their chests, as if to hold on to something, while crying with wide open eyes. |
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| physical abilities involving large body movements, such as walking and jumping. |
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| physical abilities involving small body movements, especially of the hands and fingers, such as drawing and picking up a coin |
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| a process that stimulates the body's immune system to defend against attack by a particular contagious disease. |
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Term
| sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) |
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| a situation in which a seemingly healthy infant, at least 2 months of age, suddenly stops breathing and dies unexpectedly while asleep. The cause is unknown, but it is correlated with sleeping on the stomach and having parents who smoke. |
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Term
| protein-calorie malnutrition |
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Definition
| a condition in which a person does not consume sufficient food of any kind. This deprivation can result in several illnesses, severe weight loss, and sometimes death. |
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Definition
| a disease of severe protein-calorie malnutrition during early infancy, in which growth stops, body tissues waste away, and the infant eventually dies. |
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| a disease of chronic malnutrition during childhood, in which a protein deficiency makes the child more vulnerable to other disease, such as measles, diarrhea, and influenza. |
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