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Define Child Development
A field of study devoted to understanding all aspects of human constancy and change from conception through adolescence
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Developmental Science
An interdisciplinar field devoted to the study of all changes we experence throughout the lifespan
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Theory
An orderly, integrated set of statements that describes, explains, and predicts behavior
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Continious Development
A view that regards development as a cumulative process of gradually augmenting the same types of skills that were there to begin with
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discontinous development
a view of development as a process in which new ways of nderstanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times
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Stage
a qualitative change in thinking feeling and behaing that characterizes a specific period of development
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contexts
unique combination of personals and environmental circumstances that can result in markedly diferent paths of change
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nature-nuture controversy
debate among theorists about whether genetic or environmental factors are more important in development
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resilience
the ability to adapt effecively in the face of threats to development
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tabula rasa
locke's view of the chils as a "blank slate" whose character is shaped entirely by experience
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psychoanalytical perspective
Freud's view of personality development, in which children move through a series of stages in which they cofront conflcits between biological drives and social expectations. The way these conflcits are resolved determines psychological adjustment
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psychosexual theory
freud's theory, which emphasizes that how parents manage childrens sexual and aggresive drives in the first few years of life in crucial for healthy personality development
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psychosocial theory
ericksons theory which emphasizes that at each Freudian stage, individuals not only develop a unique personalitybut also acquire attitudes and skills that help them become active, contributing members of their society
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behavior modification
procedures that combine conditioning and modeling to eliminate undesirable responses
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cognitive-developmental theory
An approach introduced by Piaget that views children as actively constructing knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world and that regards cognitive development as taking place in stages
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information processing
an approach that views the human mind as a symbol manipulating system through which information flows and that regards cognitive development as a continious process
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developmental cognitive neuroscience
An area of investigation that brings together researches from psychology biology neuroscience and medicine to study the relationship etween changes in the brain and the developing childs cognitive processing and behavior patterns
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ethology
An approach concerned with the adaptive or survival value of behavior and its evolutionary history
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Sensitive period
A time that is optimal for certain capacities to emerge and in which the individual is especially responsive to environmental influences
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evolutionary developmental psychology
An approach hat seeks to understand the adaptive value of species-wide cognitive emotional and social competencies as those competencies change with age
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sociocultural theory
Vygotsky's theory in which children acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a communitys culture through cooperative dialogues with more knowledgable members of their society
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ecological systems theory
bronfenbrenners approach whcih vies the child as developing within a complex system of relationships affected bymultiple levels of the surrounding environment from immediate settings of family and school to broad cultural values and program
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Clinical/Case Study Method
A method in which the researcher attempts to understand an individual child by combining interview data, observations, and sometimes test scores
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ethnography
a method in whcih the researcher attempts to understand the unique values and social processes of a culture or a disctinct social group through participant observation - living with its members and takin field notes over an extended period of time
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Correlational Design
A research design in whcih the researcher gathers information on individuals without altering particpants experiences and then examines relationships between variables. Does not permit referencesabout cause and effect
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Correlation coefficient
A number ranging from +100 to -100 that describes the strength and direction of the relationships between two enables
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Experimental design
A research design in which the investigator randomly assigns participations to treatment conditions. Permits inferences about cause and effect
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independent variable
the variable the researcher expects to cause changes in another variable in an experiment
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dependent variable
the variable the investigator expects to be influenced by the independent variable in an experiment
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cross-sectional design
A research design in which groups of people differing in age are studied at the same point in time
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sequintal design
A research design in which several similar cross sectional or longitudinal studies (Calles sequences) are conduced at varying times
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microgenetic design
A research design in which investigators present children with novel task and follow their mastery over a series of closely spaced sessions
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