| Question | Answer |
| developmental psychology | a branch of psychology that studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout the life span. |
| zygote | the fertilized egg; it enters a 2-week period of rapid cell division and develops into an embryo. |
| embryo | the developing human organism from about two weeks after fertilization though the second month. |
| fetus | the developing human organism from 9 weeks after conception to birth. |
| teratogens | agents, such as chemicals and viruses, that can reach theembryo orfetus during prenatal development and cause harm. |
| fetal alcoholsyndrom (FAS) | physical and cognitive abnormalities in children caused by a pregnant woman's heavy drinking. In severe cases, symptoms include noticeable facial misproportions |
| rooting reflex | a baby's tendency, when touched on the cheek, to open the mouth and search for the nipple. |
| habituation | decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation. As infants gain familiarity with repeated exposure to a visual stimulus, their interest wanes and they look away sooner. |
| maturation | biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience. |
| schema | a concept or framework that organizes and interprets information. |
| assimilation | interpreting one'snew experience in terms of one's existing schemas. |
| accommodation | adapting one's current understandings(schemas) to incorporate new information. |
| cognition | all the mental activities associated with thinking,knowing,remembering,and communication. |
| sensorimotor stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage (from birth to about 2 years of age) during which infants know the world mostly in terms of their sensory impressions and motor activities. |
| object permanence | the awareness that things continue to exisit even when not perceived. |
| preoperational stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage (from about 2 to 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic. |
| conservation | the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that properties such as mass, volume, and number remain the same despite changes in the forms of objects. |
| egocentrism | in Piaget's theory, the inability of the preoperational child to take another's point of view. |
| theory of mind | people's ideas about their own and other's mental states-about their feelings, perceptions, and thoughts and the behavior these might predict. |
| autism | a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others' states of mind. |
| concrete operational stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (from about 6 to 11 years of age) during wich children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically about concrete events. |
| formal operational stage | in Piaget's theory, the stage of cognitive development (normally beginning about age 12) during which people begin to think logically about abstract conceptions. |
| stranger anxiety | the fear of strangers the infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age. |
| attachment | an emotional tie with another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the caregiver and showing distress on separation. |
| critical period | an optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli or experience produces proper development. |
| imprinting | the process by which certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life. |
| basic trust | according to Erik Erickson, a sense that the world is predictable and trustworthy; said to be formed during infancy by appropriate experiences with responsive caregivers. |
| self-concept | a sense of one's identity and personal worth. |
| adolescence | the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence. |
| puberty | the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing. |
| primary sex characteristics | the body structures that make sexual reproduction possible. (ovaries, testies, and external genitalia) |
| secondary sex characteristics | nonreproductive sexual characteristics, such as female breast and hips, male voice quality, and body hair. |
| menarche | the first menstral period. |
| identity | one's sence of self; according to Erikson, the adolescent's task is to solidify a sence of self by testing and integrrating various roles. |
| intimacy | in Erikson's theory, the ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in late adolescence and early adulthood. |
| menopause | the time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experieces as her ability to reproduce declines. |
| Alzheimer's disease | a progressive and irreversible brain disorder characterized by gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and, finally, physical functioning. |
| cross-sectional study | a study in which people of different ages are compaired with one another. |
| longitudinal study | research in which the same people are restudied and retested over a long period. |
| crystalized intelligence | one's accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age. |
| fluid intelligence | one's ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood. |
| social clock | the culturally oreferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement. |
