Developmental Sciences: Key Terms and Concepts, Quizzes of Childhood Development

Download Developmental Sciences: Key Terms and Concepts and more Quizzes Childhood Development in PDF only on Docsity! TERM 1 Developmental Science DEFINITION 1 The field of study that focuses on the physical, intellectual, social, and emotional changes that children undergo from conception onward. TERM 2 Nature DEFINITION 2 In the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. The inherited biological predispositions of an individual. TERM 3 Nurture DEFINITION 3 The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities. The influences of the social and cultural environment on an individual. TERM 4 Plasticity DEFINITION 4 Anon-specific neuroscience term referring to the ability of the brain and nervous system in all species to change structurally and functionally as a result of input from the environment. The degree to which , and the condition under which, development is open to change and intervention. TERM 5 Critical Period DEFINITION 5 Acritical period in an organism's or person's development. A period during which specific biological or environmental events are required for normal development to occur. TERM 6 Sensitive Period DEFINITION 6 Aterm coined by the Dutch geneticist Hugo de Vries and adopted by the Italian educator Maria Montessori to refer to important periods of childhood development. A time in a child's development when a particular experience has an especially profound effect. TERM 7 Developmental Stages DEFINITION 7 A qualitatively distinctive, coherent pattern of behavior that emerges during the course of development. TERM 8 Theory DEFINITION 8 Originally the word theory as it is used in English is a technical term from Ancient Greek philosophy. A broad framework or set of principles that can be used to guide the collection and interpretation of a set of facts. TERM 9 Psychodynamic Theories DEFINITION 9 Theories, such as those of Freud and Erikson, exploring the influence on development and developmental stages of universal biological drives and the life experiences of individuals. TERM 10 Social Learning Theories DEFINITION 10 Theories that focus on development as a result of learning, changes in behavior as a result of forming associations between behavior and it's consequences. TERM 21 Critical Theories DEFINITION 21 Theories that address cultural biases that may be present in traditional developmental theories and that examine power relations between groups and the influence on development gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class. TERM 22 Hypothesis DEFINITION 22 Aproposed explanation for a phenomenon based on theory, that is precise enough to be shown to be true or false. TERM 23 Objectivity DEFINITION 23 In science is often attributed with the property of scientific measurement that can be tested independent from the individual scientist (the subject) who proposes them. The requirement that scientific knowledge not be distorted by the investigator's preconceptions. TERM 24 Reliability DEFINITION 24 In general,the ability of a person or system to perform and maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well as hostile or unexpected circumstances. The scientific requirement that when the same behavior is measured on two or more occasions by the same or different observers, the measurements be consistent with each other. TERM 25 Replicability DEFINITION 25 The ability of an experiment or study to be accurately reproduced, or replicated, by someone else working independently. The scientific requirement that other researchers can use the same procedures as an initial investigator did an obtain the same result. TERM 26 Validity DEFINITION 26 Race is classification of humans into large and distinct populations or groups by factors such as heritable phenotypic characteristics or geographic ancestry, but also often influenced by and correlated with traits such as appearance, culture, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. TERM 27 Naturalistic Observations DEFINITION 27 Observation of the actual behavior of people in the course of their everyday lives. TERM 28 Ethnography DEFINITION 28 "The science of contextualization" often used in the field of social sciences-particularly in anthropology, in some branches of sociology, and in historical science-that studies people, ethnic groups and other ethnic formations, their ethnogenesis, composition, resettlement, social welfare characteristics, as well as their material and spiritual culture. TERM 29 Experiment DEFINITION 29 Experimental psychology is a methodological approach rather than a subject and encompasses varied fields within psychology. A method of testing - with the goal of explaining - the nature of reality. In psychology, research in which a change is introduced in a person's experience and the effect of that change is measured. TERM 30 Experimental Group DEFINITION 30 The persons in an experiment whose experience is changed as part of the experiment. TERM 31 Control Group DEFINITION 31 In the design of experiments, treatments are applied to experimental units in the treatment grou, while no treatments would be applied to members of a control group. TERM 32 Ecological Validity DEFINITION 32 Aform of validity in a research study. The extent to which behavior studied in one environment (such as a psychological test) is characteristic of behavior exhibited by the same person in a range of other environments. TERM 33 Clinical Method DEFINITION 33 A research method in which questions are tailored to the individual, with each question depending on the answer of the preceding one. TERM 34 Causation DEFINITION 34 The belief that events occur in predictable ways and that one event leads to another. TERM 35 Correlation DEFINITION 35 In statistics, dependence refers to any statistical relationship between two random variables or two sets of data. TERM 46 Symbolic Tools DEFINITION 46 Cultural tools, such as abstract knowledge, beliefs, and values. TERM 47 Mediation DEFINITION 47 Mediation, as used in law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution, is a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties. How cultural tools organize people's activities and ways of relating to their environments. TERM 48 Social Enhancement DEFINITION 48 The most basic social process of learning to use cultural resources, in which resources are used simply because others' activities have made them available in the immediate environment. TERM 49 Imitation DEFINITION 49 Imitation is an advanced behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's. The social process through which children learn to use their culture's resources by observing and copying the behaviors of others. TERM 50 Explicit Instruction DEFINITION 50 The social process in which children are purposefully taught to use the resources of their culture. TERM 51 Cumulative Cultural Evolution DEFINITION 51 The dynamic ongoing process of cultural change as a consequence of variation that individuals have produced in the cultural tools they use. TERM 52 Heredity DEFINITION 52 Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring. The biological transmission of characteristics from one generation to the next. TERM 53 Genes DEFINITION 53 A gene is a molecular unit of heredity in a living organism. The segments on a DNA molecule that act as hereditary blueprints in the organism's development. TERM 54 Genotype DEFINITION 54 The genetic makeup (endowment)of a cell, an organism, or an individual. TERM 55 Phenotype DEFINITION 55 An organism's observable characteristics or traits: such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, behavior, and products of behavior, the result from the interaction of the genotype with the environment. TERM 56 Natural Selection DEFINITION 56 The nonrandom process by which biologic traits become more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers.The process through which species survive and evolve, in which individuals with phenotypes that are more adaptive to the environmental conditions survive and reproduce with greater success than individuals with phenotypes that are less adaptive. TERM 57 Infant-Directed Speech DEFINITION 57 Baby talk, also referred to as caretaker speech, infant- directed speech or child-directed speech (CDS) and informally as "motherese", "parentese", "mommy talk", or "daddy talk" is a nonstandard form of speech used by adults in talking to toddlers and infants. The special, musical speech used in talking to infants. TERM 58 Chromosome DEFINITION 58 An organized structure of DNA and protein found in cells. A threadlike structure made up of genes. In humans, there are 46 chromosomes in every cell except spermand ova. TERM 59 DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) DEFINITION 59 A long double-stranded molecule that makes up chromosomes. TERM 60 Monozygotic Twins DEFINITION 60 One of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy, that come from one zygote and therefore have identical genotypes. TERM 71 Gene Pool DEFINITION 71 The total variety of genetic information possessed by a sexually reproducing population. TERM 72 Mutation DEFINITION 72 An alteration in the molecular structure of an individual's DNA. TERM 73 Zygote DEFINITION 73 The single cell formed at conception from the union of the sperm and the ovum. TERM 74 Germ Cells DEFINITION 74 The sperm and ova, which are specialized for sexual reproduction and have half the number of chromosomes normal for a species. TERM 75 Somatic Cells DEFINITION 75 All the cells in the body except for the germ cells (ova and sperm). TERM 76 Mitosis DEFINITION 76 The process of cell duplication and division that generates all the individual's cells except sperm and ova. TERM 77 Meiosis DEFINITION 77 The process that produces sperm and ova, each of which contains only half of the parent cell's original complement of 46 chromosomes. TERM 78 Phenotypic Plasticity DEFINITION 78 the degree to which the phenotype is open to influence by the environment, rather than determined by the genotype. TERM 79 Canalized DEFINITION 79 a trait that is canalized follows a strictly defined path, regardless of most environmental and genetic variations. TERM 80 Heritability DEFINITION 80 A measure of the degree to which a variation in a particular trait among individuals in a specific population is related to genetic differences among those individuals. TERM 81 Kinship Studies DEFINITION 81 The use of naturally occuring conditions provided by kinship relations to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to a phenotypic trait. TERM 82 Family Study DEFINITION 82 A study that compares members of the same family to determine how simular they are on a given trait. TERM 83 Twin Study DEFINITION 83 A study in which TERM 84 Baldwin Effect DEFINITION 84 Also known as Baldwinian evolution or ontogenic evolution, is a theory of a possible evolutionary processes that was originally put forward in 1896 in a paper, "A New Factor in Evolution," by American psychologist James Mark Baldwin.The role of cultural factors in determining which phenotypes are adaptive. TERM 85 Ectoderm Chapter 3 page 87 DEFINITION 85 Cells of the inner cell mass yhat develop into the outer surface of the skin, the nails, part of the teeth, the lens of the eye, the inner ear, and the central nervous system.