Glossary

Abortion is the deliberate termination of a pregnancy.

Abstinence is the ability to refrain from participating in sexual activities.

Active euthanasia involves the intentional act of causing the death of a person, usually to relieve their suffering.

Adolescence is a period of dramatic physical change that begins with puberty and ends with the transition to adulthood (approximately ages 10–20).

Andropause in men is the decrease in libido and lower testosterone (androgen) levels.

Antisocial behavior - actions that are considered to violate the rights of others.

Anxiety is an emotion that is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events.

Athletic coach style of parenting - the athletic coach as a parent helps the child understand what needs to happen in certain situations, whether in friendships, school, or home life and encourages and advises the child about how to manage these situations. The parent does not intervene or do things for the child.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is considered a neurological and behavioral disorder in which a person has difficulty staying on task, screening out distractions, and inhibiting behavioral outbursts.

Authoritarian is the traditional model of parenting in which parents make the rules and children are expected to be obedient.

Autonomous – adolescents begin making independent decisions that align with personal values and goals instead of being coerced by external forces.

Autonomy involves making independent decisions that align with personal values and goals instead of being coerced by external forces.

Bereavement is the objective experience of loss.

Birthing Centers or Birthing Rooms are hospital rooms that look more like suites in a hotel equipped with beds that can be converted for delivery. These rooms are also equipped with a bed and monitoring systems for the newborn. The intent is to create a warm environment similar to a home located in the hospital in the event of an emergency.

Body Mass Index (BMI), a measure for determining excess weight, is the relationship between height and weight.

Boomerang Generation refers to young adults, mainly between the ages of 25 and 34, who return home to live with their parents while they strive for stability in their lives.

Cancer is the name given to a collection of related diseases in which the body’s cells begin to divide without stopping and spread into surrounding tissues.

Cholesterol is a waxy, fatty substance carried by lipoprotein molecules in the blood.

Chronic inflammation is the body’s natural way of responding to injury or harmful pathogens.

Classification - As children’s experiences and vocabularies grow, they build schemata and can organize objects in classification hierarchies and various classes and subclasses.

Climacteric is the reduction in human reproduction.

Cognitive empathy - the theory of mind concerning egocentrism, relates to the ability to take the perspective of others and feel concerned for others.

Cohabitation is an arrangement where two or more people who are not married live together.

Commitment refers to the cognitive process and decision to commit to loving another person and the willingness to work to keep that love throughout your life.

Concrete operational stage – the developmental stage when children mentally “operate” on concrete objects and events.

Contraception - methods used to prevent pregnancies.

Crowds are characterized more by shared reputations or images than actual interactions.

Crystallized intelligence encompasses abilities that draw upon experience and knowledge.

Cultural relativity is an appreciation for cultural differences and the understanding that cultural practices are best understood from the standpoint of that culture.

Culture is often referred to as a blueprint or guideline shared by a group that specifies how to live.

Death refers to the permanent cessation of life in an organism.

Death and dying is a phenomenon that discusses various matters that take place at the end of the lifespan.

Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity.

Diabetes (Diabetes Mellitus) is a disease in which the body does not control the amount of glucose in the blood.

Dialectical thinking is defined as seeing things from multiple perspectives.

Diastolic pressure is the pressure in the blood vessels when the heart rests.

Dichotomies are absolute terms.

Dizygotic twins occur when two eggs or ova are released and fertilized by two sperm.

Dualism thinking is absolute, true/false, right and wrong.

Dyslexia is one of the most commonly diagnosed disabilities and involves having difficulty in the area of reading. This diagnosis is used for a number of reading difficulties.

Early childhood is the preschool years that follow toddlerhood and precede formal schooling.

Elopement - secretly getting married.

Emerging Adulthood captures these developmental changes from adolescence and into adulthood, occurring from ages 18 to 29.

Emerging and Early Adulthood is when we are at our physiological peak, but there is an increase in risk-taking behaviors. This age group is between 20 and 30.

An empty nest is a situation in which adult children leave their homes.

Endogamy indicates the groups we should marry within and those we should not marry.

Epigenesis is the theory, now generally held, that an embryo develops progressively from an undifferentiated egg cell.

Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work.

Ethnocentrism is the belief that our culture’s practices and expectations are superior to others.

Euthanasia, also known as mercy killing, intentionally ends someone's life to relieve their suffering.

Fluid intelligence refers to information processing abilities, such as logical reasoning, remembering lists, spatial ability, and reaction time.

Foreclosure occurs when an individual commits to an identity without exploring options.

Formal relationships are those that are bound by the rules of politeness.

Gatekeeping regulates the flow of information about their new romantic partner to their children.

A gene is a segment of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) that carries the instructions for building and functioning of living organisms. It is the fundamental unit of heredity and determines various traits and characteristics of an organism.

Generativity is primarily concerned in establishing and guiding the next generation.

Genome refers to all your DNA. Each genome contains the information needed to build and maintain that organism throughout its life.

Genotype refers to the information about the genes that a person inherits.

Homogamy or marriage between people who share social characteristics.

Hypertension is high blood pressure.

Identity achievement occurs when individuals explore different options and commit to an identity.

Identity diffusion occurs when adolescents neither explore nor commit to any identities.

Identity diffusion is a complex process in which humans develop a clear and unique view of themselves and their identity.

Inductive reasoning - a logical process in which multiple premises believed to be trustworthy are combined to obtain a specific conclusion.

Industrialized societies are driven by technology and machinery to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labor.

Infancy and toddlerhood are the first year and a half to two years of life, and dramatic growth and change occur.

Informal Relationships are friends, lovers, siblings, or others with whom you can relax.

Kinkeeping or kinkeepers often function as “managers” who maintain family ties and lines of communication.

Klinefelter’s syndrome (KS) is a genetic disorder predominantly found in those assigned male at birth. People with KS have an additional copy of the X chromosome. The primary features are infertility and small, poorly functioning testicles (if present). Symptoms are often noticed only at puberty.

Late adulthood is categorized and distinguished between the “young old” people between 65 and 79 and the “old-old” or those who are 80 and older.

Life Span Growth and Development studies how and why people change or remain the same over time.

A martyr is a parent who will do anything for the child, even tasks the child should do for himself or herself.

Maternal death - the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.

Menopause refers to a period of transition in which a woman’s ovaries stop releasing eggs, and the level of estrogen and progesterone production decreases.

Mid-Life Crisis - an emotional crisis of identity and self-confidence that can occur in early middle age.

Middle Adulthood is a period in which aging, which began earlier, becomes more noticeable and a period at which many people are at their peak of productivity in love and work. This age group is between the late thirties and mid-sixties.

Middle adulthood, or midlife, refers to the period of the lifespan between early adulthood and late adulthood.

Middle Childhood is the ages of six through eleven, and much of what children experience at this age is connected to their involvement in the early grades of school.

Miscarriage, also known as spontaneous abortion, refers to the natural loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week of gestation.

Monozygotic twins occur when a single zygote or fertilized egg splits apart in the first two weeks of development.

A moratorium is a state in which adolescents actively explore options but have not yet made commitments.

Mortality salience posits that reminders about death or finitude (at either a conscious or subconscious level) fill us with dread.

Mourning is the process by which people adapt to a loss. Mourning is greatly influenced by cultural beliefs, practices, and rituals.

Multiple perspectives - With the emergence of connote operations, children can understand that people looking from different vantage points see different features. They can coordinate multiple perspectives.

Multiplicity is recognizing that some problems are solvable and some answers are not yet known.

Numerical abnormalities occur when an individual is born with too many or too few chromosomes.

Obese - children who are at or above the 95th percentile, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Obesity is a medical condition, sometimes considered a disease, in which excess body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it negatively affects health.

Operational – the second major shift in cognitive development comes during middle childhood when thought becomes operational, consisting of reversible, organized systems of mental actions that allow children to undo actions mentally and to understand that specific properties of objects remain constant despite transformations in appearance.

Osteosarcopenia describes the decline of both muscle tissue and bone tissue.

Overweight - children whose BMI is at or above the 85th percentile for their age, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Pal is like the permissive parent described in Baumrind’s model who wants to be the child’s friend.

Palliative care, or palliative medicine, is a specialized healthcare approach that relieves the symptoms, pain, and stress associated with advanced or life-threatening illnesses.

Parkinson's Disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that can cause tremors, rigidity, and difficulty with balance and movement.

Passive euthanasia refers to withholding or withdrawing medical treatment or life-sustaining measures necessary to keep a person alive.

Peers are a group of people who have similar interests, age, background, or social status.

Phallic stage - occurs during the preschool years (ages 3-5) when the child has a new biological challenge.

Phenotype refers to the features that are expressed.

Physician-assisted suicide occurs when a physician prescribes how a person can end his or her life.

Physiological death occurs when the vital organs no longer function.

The police officer/drill sergeant parenting style is similar to the authoritarian parent, focusing primarily on ensuring that the child is obedient and that the parent has complete control of the child.

Post-secondary education includes community colleges, universities, and trade schools.

Postformal thought is practical, realistic, and more individualistic but also characterized by understanding the complexities of various perspectives.

Prenatal development is when conception occurs, and development begins.

Preoperational stage – the developmental stage when children are learning to think symbolically about the world.

Presbycusis is the most common cause of hearing loss and is generally due to the loss or damage of nerve hair cells inside the cochlea.

Presbyopia is when the lens of the eye gets larger, but the eye loses some of the flexibility required to adjust to visual stimuli.

Proximity or physical nearness.

Reciprocity is based on the notion that we are more likely to like someone if they feel the same way toward us.

Rejectivity is severe stagnation.

Relativism is understanding the importance of the specific context of knowledge—it’s all relative to other factors.

Reversibility - The child learns that some things that have changed can be returned to their original state.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) occurs when antibodies attack normal synovial fluid in the joints, mistaking them for an alien threat.

The Sandwich Generation is a group of adults still looking out for their children while caring for elderly parents.

Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle tissue and function.

Scaffolding is when a guide provides needed assistance to the child as a new skill is learned.

Self-concept - their ability to think of the possibilities and to reason more abstractly about one’s self.

Self-esteem is confidence in one's worth, abilities, or morals.

Self-focused is when emerging adults focus more on themselves as they realize that they have few obligations to others and that this is when they can do what they want with their lives.

Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or venereal diseases (VDs), are illnesses that have a significant probability of transmission through sexual behavior, including vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and oral sex.

Social death occurs when others begin to withdraw from someone terminally ill or diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Social Integration is the concept used to describe the number of social roles you have.

Social Media are websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.

Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, or SST, maintains that as time horizons shrink, as they typically do with age, people become increasingly selective, investing greater resources in emotionally meaningful goals and activities.

Soft skills are non-technical skills that describe how you work and interact with others.

Stagnation refers to the feeling of lethargy and a lack of enthusiasm and involvement in both individual and communal affairs.

Structural abnormalities occur when a chromosome's structure is altered.

Suicide is death caused by injuring oneself and intending to die. A [suicide attempt] is when someone harms themselves with any intent to end their life, but they do not die because of their actions.

Systolic pressure is the pressure in the blood vessels when the heart beats.

Tacit knowledge is pragmatic or practical knowledge learned through experience rather than explicitly taught.

The teacher-counselor parent pays a lot of attention to expert advice on parenting and believes that as long as all of the steps are followed, the parent can rear a perfect child.

Temperament is defined as the innate characteristics of the infant, including mood, activity level, and emotional reactivity, noticeable soon after birth.

Teratogens can contribute to birth defects, including maternal diseases, pollutants, drugs, and alcohol.

Teratology is a branch of the biological sciences dealing with the causes, development, description, and classification of congenital malformations in plants and animals and with the experimental production, in some instances, of these malformations (Britannica, 2023).

Thanatology is the scientific study of death, dying, and the processes surrounding them. It is an interdisciplinary field encompassing various disciplines, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, medicine, philosophy, and religious studies.

Turner’s syndrome (TS) is a genetic disorder caused by a sex chromosome monosomy; compared to the two sex chromosomes (XX or XY) in most people, it only affects women. Signs and symptoms vary among those affected. Turner’s syndrome has several physical and psychological impacts, including short stature, heart defects, neck webbing, delayed or absent puberty, and infertility.

Uniform Determination of Death Act attempts to provide clarity for clinically defining death in most states throughout the United States with the following: An individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead. A determination of death must be made by accepted medical standards.

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is a concept in educational psychology. It represents the space between what a learner can do unsupported and cannot do even with support. It is the range where the learner can perform, but only with support from a teacher or a peer with more knowledge or expertise (a “more knowledgeable other”). The concept was introduced, but not fully developed, by psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) during the last three years of his life. Source: Wikipedia.

A zygote is a new single-celled organism formed through fertilization.