Chapter 4

Question 1

Cephalocaudal Trend

Answer 1

“Head to Tail” in Latin

During the prenatal period, the head develops more rapidly than the lower part of the body.

Question 2

Proximodistal Trend

Answer 2

Growth proceeds, literally, from “near to far” - from the center of the body.

Question 3

Neurons

Answer 3

Nerve cells that store and transmit information.

Question 4

Synapses

Answer 4

Area between neurons, where fibers from different neurons come close together by do no touch.

Question 5

Neurotransmitters

Answer 5

Chemicals released by neurons that cross the synapse to send a message to another neuron.

Question 6

Programmed Cell Death

Answer 6

Makes space for these connective structures: As synapses form, many surrounding neurons die, 40-60%, depending on the brain region.

Question 7

Synaptic Pruning

Answer 7

Neurons that are seldom stimulated lose their synapses through this process. Neurons not needed at the moment to an uncommitted state so they can support future development.

Question 8

Glial Cells

Answer 8

Half of the brains volume, responsible for myelination.

Question 9

Mylelination

Answer 9

The coating of neural fibers with an insulating fatty sheath (myelin) that improves the efficiency of message transfer.

Question 10

Measurements of Brain Functioning

Answer 10

• Electroencephalogram (EEG)
• Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)
• Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
• Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
• Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS)

Question 11

Cerebral Cortex

Answer 11

Surrounds the rest of the brain, resembling half of a shelled walnut. It is the largest brain structure, accounting for 85 percent of the brain’s weight and containing the greatest number of neurons and synapses.

Question 12

Prefrontal Cortex

Answer 12

Lying in the front areas controlling body movement, is responsible for complex thought - in particular, consciousness and various “executive” processes, including inhibition of impulses, integration or information, and memory, reasoning, planning, and problem solving strategies.

Question 13

Lateralization

Answer 13

Specialization of the two hemispheres of the brain.

Question 14

Brain Plasticity

Answer 14

A highly plastic cerebral cortex, in which many areas are not yet committed to specific functions, has a highly capacity for learning. And if a part of the cortex is damaged, other parts can take over tasks it would have handled.

Question 15

Experience-Expectant Brain Growth

Answer 15

Refers to the young brain’s rapidly developing organization, which depends on ordinary experiences - opportunities to explore the environment, interact with people, and hear language and other sounds.

Question 16

Experience-Dependent Brain Growth

Answer 16

Occurs throughout our lives. It consists of additional growth and refinement of established brain structures as a result of specific learning experiences that very widely across individuals and cultures.

Question 17

Benefits of Breastfeeding

Answer 17

• Provides the correct balance of fat and protein
• Ensures nutritional completeness
• Helps ensure healthy physical growth
• Protects against many diseases
• Protects against faulty jaw development and tooth decay
• Ensures digestibility
• Smooths the transition to solid foods

Question 18

Maramus

Answer 18

A wasted condition of the body caused by a diet low in all essential nutrients. It usually appears in the first year of life when a baby’s mother is too malnourished to produce enough breastmilk and bottle-feeding is also inadequate.

Question 19

Kwashiorkor

Answer 19

Caused by an unbalanced diet very low in protein. The disease usually strikes after weaning, between 1 & 3 years of age.

Question 20

Classical Conditioning

Answer 20

Possible in the young infant. In this form of learning, a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that leads to a reflexive response. Once the baby’s nervous system makes the connection between the two stimuli, the neutral stimulus produces the behavior by itself.

Question 21

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Answer 21

Neutral stimulus producing a reflexive response.

Question 22

Conditioned Response (CR)

Answer 22

The response the CS elicits

Question 23

Operant Conditioning

Answer 23

Infants act, or operate, on the environment, and stimuli that follow their behavior change the probability that the behavior will occur again. A stimulus that increases the occurrence of a response is called a reinforcer.

Question 24

Punishment

Answer 24

Removing a desirable stimulus or presenting an unpleasant one to decrease the occurrence of a response.

Question 25

Habituation

Answer 25

Refers to a gradual reduction in the strength of a response due to repetitive stimulation.

Question 26

Recovery

Answer 26

A new stimulus - a change in the environment - causes responsiveness to return to a high level, an increase.

Question 27

Imitation

Answer 27

Copying the behavior of another person.

Question 28

Mirror Neurons

Answer 28

Specialized cells in motor areas of the cerebral cortex in primates that may underlie early imitative capacities. Mirror neurons fire identically when a primate hears of sees an action and when it carries out that action on its own.

Question 29

Dynamic Systems Theory of Motor Development

Answer 29

Mastery of motor skills involves acquiring increasingly complex systems of action. When motor skills work as a system, separate abilities blend together, each cooperating with others to produce more effective ways of exploring and controlling the environment.

Question 30

Statistical Learning Capacity

Answer 30

By analyzing the speech stream for patterns - repeatedly occurring sequences of sounds - they acquire a stock of speech structures for which they will later learn meaning, long before they start to talk around age 12 months.

Question 31

Perceptual Narrowing Effect

Answer 31

Perceptual sensitivity that becomes increasingly attuned with age to information most often encountered.

Question 32

Constrast Sensitivity

Answer 32

A general principal that explains early pattern preferences. Contrast refers to the difference in the amount of light between adjacent regions in a pattern. If babies are sensitive to (can detect) the contrast in two or more patterns, they prefer the one with more contrast.

Question 33

Intermodal Perception

Answer 33

Makes sense of these running streams of light, sound, tactile, odor, and taste information, perceiving them as integrated wholes.

Question 34

Differentiation Theory

Answer 34

Infants actively search for invariant features of the environment - those that remain stable - in a constantly changing perceptual world.