Unit 3: Development and Learning

22 terms. Say what each one means, then open the card to check.

• Teratogen

  Any substance or agent, such as a drug, virus or chemical, that can harm a baby's development before birth.

  Example. Heavy drinking during pregnancy can cause fetal alcohol syndrome, with facial differences and lasting learning problems.

• Critical period

  A window early in life when certain experiences must happen for a skill or trait to develop normally.

  Example. A child born with cataracts that are not removed for years may never develop normal vision in that eye.

• Rooting reflex

  An inborn newborn response in which the baby turns toward a touch on the cheek and opens the mouth.

  Example. When a parent strokes a two-day-old's cheek, the baby turns that way and starts searching with her mouth.

• Object permanence

  The understanding that things keep existing when they cannot be seen, heard or touched.

  Example. A 10-month-old lifts a cloth to find the toy she just watched her father hide under it.

• Conservation

  The understanding that an amount stays the same when its shape or arrangement changes, mastered in Piaget's concrete operational stage.

  Example. An 8-year-old knows a ball of clay rolled into a long snake still has the same amount of clay.

• Zone of proximal development

  In Vygotsky's view, the range of tasks a learner cannot yet do alone but can do with help from someone more skilled.

  Example. A child can't read a new chapter book alone but can read it when an older sister helps sound out the hard words.

• Overgeneralization

  A language error in which a young child applies a grammar rule to words that are exceptions to it.

  Example. A 3-year-old says she runned to the swings and saw two mouses, using the regular rules for past tense and plurals.

• Secure attachment

  A bond in which a child uses a caregiver as a safe base, explores freely, and is easily comforted when the caregiver returns.

  Example. A toddler plays across the room, cries when his mother leaves, and calms quickly once she comes back.

• Temperament

  A person's typical emotional style and reactivity, which shows up early in life and is partly inborn.

  Example. From her first weeks, one baby fusses at every new sound, while her twin brother stays calm and curious.

• Authoritative parenting

  A parenting style that pairs clear rules and high expectations with warmth and explanations of the reasons for those rules.

  Example. A father sets a firm curfew, explains why, and listens when his daughter asks to change it for a special event.

• Identity versus role confusion

  Erikson's teen-years stage, in which young people try out roles and values to form a stable sense of who they are.

  Example. A 16-year-old tries the debate team, a new style and two job ideas while asking what she truly cares about.

• Conditioned stimulus

  A once-neutral stimulus that, after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a response by itself.

  Example. After many meals that followed a kitchen timer's ding, the ding alone makes a hungry student's mouth water.

• Extinction

  The weakening of a learned response when the conditioned stimulus keeps appearing without the unconditioned stimulus.

  Example. A dentist's drill sound stops making a patient tense after many visits where the drill never causes pain.

• Spontaneous recovery

  The return of an extinguished conditioned response after a rest period, usually weaker than before.

  Example. Weeks after a dog stopped drooling at a bell, it drools a little again the first time the bell rings after a break.

• Taste aversion

  A learned dislike of a food after it is paired with illness, which can form after one pairing and a delay of hours.

  Example. After getting the flu the night he ate lemon pie, a boy feels sick at the smell of lemon pie for years.

• Negative reinforcement

  Strengthening a behavior by removing something unpleasant right after the behavior occurs.

  Example. A driver buckles her seat belt more reliably because doing so stops the car's loud beeping.

• Positive punishment

  Weakening a behavior by adding something unpleasant right after the behavior occurs.

  Example. A student who talks during a test is given extra homework, and she talks less during later tests.

• Variable-ratio schedule

  Reinforcement after an unpredictable number of responses, which produces high, steady responding that is hard to extinguish.

  Example. A fishing fan keeps casting all afternoon because a bite might come on any cast.

• Shaping

  Teaching a new behavior by reinforcing closer and closer approximations of the target behavior.

  Example. A trainer rewards a parrot for facing a bell, then for touching it, and finally only for ringing it.

• Observational learning

  Learning by watching what others do and what happens to them, then imitating it, as Bandura described.

  Example. A teen learns to change a bike tire by watching a friend do it once, then does it herself the next week.

• Latent learning

  Learning that happens without any reward and stays hidden until there is a reason to show it.

  Example. A boy who has only ridden as a passenger can guide his aunt to the mall the day her map app fails.

• Learned helplessness

  Giving up trying after repeated experience that one's actions do not change bad outcomes, even once they could.

  Example. After years of failed diets, a man refuses to try a proven program, saying nothing he does ever works.