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MATURATION
- biological growth processes
- that enable orderly changes in behavior, relatively uninfluenced by experience.
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COGNITION
- all the mental activities
- associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.
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ASSIMILATION
- interpreting our new
- experience in terms of our existing schemas.
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ACCOMMODATION
- adapting our current
- understandings (schemas) to incorporate new information.
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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.
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OBJECT PERMANENCE
- the awareness that things continue to exist even
- when not perceived.
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PREOPERATIONAL STAGE
- in Piaget’s theory, the stage (from about 2 to
- 6 or 7 years of age) during which a child learns to use language but does not
- yet comprehend the mental operations of concrete logic.
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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.
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EGOCENTRISM
- in Piaget’s theory, the
- preoperational child’s difficulty taking another’s point of view.
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THEORY OF MIND
- people’s ideas about their
- own and others’ mental states – about feelings, perceptions, and thoughts, and
- the behaviors these might predict.
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CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE
- in Piaget’s theory, the
- stage of cognitive development (from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age) during
- which children gain the mental operations that enable them to think logically
- about concrete events.
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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 concepts.
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AUTISM
- a disorder that appears in childhood and is marked by
- deficient communication, social interaction, and understanding of others’
- states of mind.
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STRANGER ANXIETY
- the fear of strangers that
- infants commonly display, begging by about 8 months of age.
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ATTACHMENT
- an emotional tie with
- another person; shown in young children by their seeking closeness to the
- caregiver and showing distress on separation.
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CRITICAL PERIOD
- an optional period shortly
- after birth when an organism’s exposure to certain stimuli or experiences
- produces proper development.
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IMPRINTING
- the process by which
- certain animals form attachments during a critical period very early in life.
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SELF-CONCEPT
- our understanding and
- evaluation of who we are.
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ADOLESCENCE
- the transition period from
- childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.
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PUBERTY
- the period of sexual
- maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing.
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PRIMARY SEX CHARACTERISTICS
- the body structures
- (ovaries, testes, and external genitalia) that make sexual reproduction
- possible.
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SECONDARY SEX CHARACTERTISTICS
- non-reproductive sexual
- characteristics, such as female breasts and hips, male voice quality, and body
- hair.
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MENARCHE
- the first menstrual period.
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IDENTITY
- our sense of self;
- according to Erikson, the adolescent’s task is to solidify a sense of self by
- testing and integrating various roles.
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SOCIAL IDENTITY
- the “we” aspect of our
- self-concept; the part of our answer to “who am I?’ that comes from our group
- memberships.
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INTIMACY
- in Erikson’s theory, the
- ability to form close, loving relationships; a primary developmental task in
- late adolescence and early adulthood.
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