10.1 lifespan development

Question 1

developmental psychology

Answer 1

the study of physical and psychological changes commonly associated with the different stage of our life

Question 2

cross sectional designs

Answer 2

involves measuring groups of ppl at a single point in time, but that differ in their age
-have the potential confound of cohort effects-ppl that are diff ages, also developed in diff time periods

Question 3

longitudinal designs

Answer 3

involves measuring the same group of ppl at diff points of time
-these designs are time-consuming and there is a high risk of attrition- the withdrawal of participants from a study over time

Question 4

developmental stages

Answer 4

lifespan changes proceed through patterns of stability followed by periods of more rapid transition

Question 5

sensitive periods

Answer 5

the points of rapid change that mark points of transition bw developmental stages

Question 6

diff abilities have

Answer 6

diff sensitive periods

Question 7

conception

Answer 7

sperm and ovum

Question 8

germinal stage

Answer 8

zygote
cell division takes place
blastocyte reaches uterus
blastocyte makes its way down the fallopian tube and is implanted on the inner lining of the uterus
inner cluster of cells forms the developing embryo
the outer ring of the cells forms the developing placenta

Question 9

embryonic stage

Answer 9

lasts 2 to 8 weeks after conception

-forms major body parts

Question 10

the fetal stage

Answer 10

8 weeks to birth (ideally, around 40 weeks)
100,000,000 million neurons
40,000 neurons per second

Question 11

maternal malnourishment

Answer 11

increases the risk of giving birth to lower weight newborns that are more prone to illness and deficits in mental functioning
babies born during world war II experienced a variety of serious physical and psychological problems

Question 12

Teratogens

Answer 12

substances that negatively affects the process of development in utero
-thalidomide

Question 13

Thalidomide

Answer 13

• pills pregnant women took

- caused severe birth defects, including blindness, deafness and limb deformities called phocomelia

Question 14

fetal alcohol syndrome

Answer 14

-infants have both problems with mental functions and physical features

Question 15

smoking and pregnancy

Answer 15

• lowers the amount of oxygen needed for the fetus to consume
• adds nicotine and carbon monoxide to the vulnerable fetuses environment
• smoking while pregnant is correlated with miscarriage and infant mortality, premature birth, underweight baby

Question 16

preterm infants

Answer 16

the chance of a baby’s survival if it is born at only 25 weeks is about 50% and the babies that do survive suffer permanent damage to their brain and other organs

Question 17

sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS

Answer 17

a syndrome in which infants die because they stop breathing

• infants and particularly preterm ones have very vulnerable respiratory systems
• exposure to 2nd hand smoke triples the risk that a baby will die of SIDS

Question 18

infant sensory abilities

Answer 18

infants enter the world preferring their mother’s voice over other voices

• infant vision is especially well designed to facilitate interacting with their mother while breastfeeding
• infants tasting ability is about equivalent to adults, as well as their smell abilites

Question 19

infant social abilities

Answer 19

infants imitate adults facial expressions
-in experiments that measure infants looking time to diff stimuli, babies show a preference for human faces over other comparison stimuli

Question 20

newborn human babies are unusually helpless

Answer 20

• compared to newborn members of other species, they are able to walk and swim
• humans are born with a lot of brain development left to do

Question 21

after birth, brain development continues in human infants

Answer 21

• myelination of axons to speed transmission of signals
• synaptogenesis (or the creation of neural connections)
• synaptic pruning (deleting unnecessary or weak neural connections)

Question 22

infant reflexes

Answer 22

involuntary motor actions that help newborn infants adapt to life outside of the uterus

Question 23

rooting reflex

Answer 23

stimulating the corner of an infants mouth causes the baby to move their head toward the source of the stimulation and start sucking

Question 24

moro reflex

Answer 24

newborns react with a startle response whenever they lose support of their head

Question 25

grasping reflex

Answer 25

touching a baby’s palm causes them to tighten their grasp with surprising strength

Question 26

motor development

Answer 26

the road to walking alone is a bumpy, trial and error learning process

Question 27

jean piaget

Answer 27

interest in child cognitive development

Question 28

assimilation

Answer 28

acquiring new knowledge by relating it to what we already know

Question 29

accommodation

Answer 29

learning by adjusting old knowledge in the face of new information

Question 30

developmental milestones

Answer 30

achieving mastery over a particular skill

Question 31

piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Answer 31

the sensorimotor stage
preoperational stage
concrete operations stage
formal operational stage

Question 32

sensorimotor stage

Answer 32

birth to age 2
-all of the child’s awareness is tied to their sensory experience and they are not yet capable of any thoughts that are separate from what they can directly see, hear, taste, smell or feel

Question 33

object permanence

Answer 33

an awareness that objects continue to exist when we are unable to directly perceive them

Question 34

preoperational stage

Answer 34

ages 2-7
accomplishments include language acquisition and being able to think in other symbolic ways such as with numbers
children acquire an increasing ability to use their imagination, to imitate the behaviour of others and to pretend

Question 35

conservation

Answer 35

an accomplishment of this stage that involves learning that changes in the perceptual features of a substance doesn’t change the substances volume or quantity
ex. making a liquid taller and skinnier doesn’t make it a greater volume
ex.spacing pennies out into a longer row doesn’t increase the number of pennies
interestingly, young children seem to reason better about quantities of objects and amounts of substances when the problems have to do with candy

Question 36

scale errors

Answer 36

early in the preoperational stage, children confuse scale models of objects with the real thing

Question 37

concrete operations stage

Answer 37

age 7 to 11
children acquire skills in thinking logically, mentally performing operations with numbers and learn how to classify objects according to size, shape, colour, etc.

Question 38

transitivity

Answer 38

if x>y and y>z then x>z

Question 39

formal operational stage

Answer 39

ages 11 to adulthood
children experience an increasing complexity of reasoning capacity and the ability to think about abstract concepts
the ability to adopt a scientific approach to problems also emerges at this stage

Question 40

lifespan development

Answer 40

physical and cognitive development in utero, in infancy, and in childhood