Chapter 5

An average, or standard, measurement, calculated from the measurements of many individuals within a specific group or population.

A point on a ranking scale of 0 to 100. The 50th percentile is the midpoint; each half ranks lower/higher.

The biological protection of the brain when malnutrition affects body growth. The brain is the last part of the body to be damaged by malutrition.

Rapid Eye Movement sleep, a stage of sleep characterized by flickering eyes behind closed lids, dreaming, and rapid brain waves.

The dozing stage when a person is half awake.

A custom in which parents and their children (usually infants) sleep together. Also called bed sharing.

One of the billions of nerve cells in the central nervous system, especially the brain.

• The outer layer of the brain in humans and other mammals. Most thinking, feeling, and sensing involve the cortex.
• Also called the neocortex.

A fiber that extends from a neuron and transmits electrochemical impulses from that neuron to the dendrites of other neurons.

A fiber that extends from a neuron and receives electrochemical impulses transmitted from other neurons via their axons.

The intersection between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites of other neurons.

Carry information from the axon of the sending neuron, across the snyaptic gap, to the dendrites of the receiving neuron, a process speeded up by myelination.

The great increase in the number of dendrites that occurs in an infant's brain during the first two years of life.

The process in which unused neurons and misconnected dendrites atrophy and die.

Refers to brain functions that require certain basic common experiences (which an infant can be expected to have) in order to develop normally.

Refers to brain functions that depend on particular, variable experiences and that therefore may or may not develop in a particular infant.

The area of cortex at the front of the brain that specializes in anticipation, planning, and impulse control.

A life-threatening condition that occurs when an infant is forcefully shaken back and forth, rupturing blood vessels in the brain and breaking neural connections.

The inborn drive to remedy a developmental deficit.

A time when a certain kind of growth or development is most likely to happen or happens most readily.

The response of a sensory system (eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose) when it detects a stimulae.

The mental processing of sensory information, when the brain interprets a sensation.

The ability to focus the two eyes in a coordinated manner in order to see one image.

The learned ability to move some part of the body, from a large leap to a flicker of the eyelid.

Motor defined as movement of muscles

A responsive movement that seems automatic because it almost always occurs in reaction to a particular stimulus. Newborns have many relfexes, some of which disappear with maturation.

• Reflexes that maintain oxygen supply -- breathing reflex, hiccups, sneezes, thrashing of arms/legs
• Reflexes that maintain constant body temperature -- when cold, crying, shivering, tucking in of legs. When hot, push away blankets.
• Reflexes that manage feeding -- sucking reflex, rooting reflex, swallowing, crying, spitting up

• Babinski reflex - feet stroked, toes fan upward.
• Stepping reflex - When feet touching flat surface and infant help upright, they move legs as if to walk.
• Swimming reflex - Laid horizontally on stomachs, infants stretch out their arms and legs.
• Palmar grasping reflex - When something touches the palms, infants grip it tightly.
• Moro reflex - When startled, infants fling their arms outward, then bring back to chest as if to hold on to something, while crying and wide-open eyes.

• Physical abilities involving large body movements, such as walking and jumping.
• GROSS meaning big.

• Muscle strength
• Brain maturation within the motor cortex
• Practice

• Physical abilities involving small body movements, especially of the hands and fingers, such as drawing and picking up a coin.
• Fine meaning small.

• A process that stimulates the body's immune system to defend against attack by a particular contagious disease.
• A person may acquire immunization naturally or through vaccination.

A situation in which a seemingly healthy infant, at least two months of age, suddenly stops breathing and dies unexpectedly while asleep. The cause is unknown, but it is correlated with sleeping on the stomach and having parents who smoke.

A thick, high-calorie fluid secreted by the woman's breasts at the birth of her child. After about three days, the breasts begin to produce milk.

A condition in which a person does not consume sufficient food of any kind. This deprivation can result in several illnesses, severe weight loss, and sometimes death.

• 1. Their brains may not develop normally.
• 2. No body reserves to protect them against common diseases. Half of all childhood deaths occur because malnutrition makes a childhood disease lethal.
• 3. Some diseases result directly from malnutrition.

A disease of severe protein-calorie malnutrition during early infancy, in which growth stops, body tissues waste away, and the infant eventually dies.

A disease of chronic malnutrition during childhood, in which a protein deficiency makes the child more vulnerable to other diseases, such as measels, diarrhea, and influenza.