A theory put forward by Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005), which states that family relationships relative to child development must be understood as a network of interacting parts or systems in a whole that is itself influenced by wider social and cultural processes. In short, there is not just an ‘environment’, but rather a multiplicity of environmental systems …
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Ecological fallacy
A bias due to deriving inferences about individual characteristics from aggregate data, or an error of inference due to a failure to distinguish between different levels of organisation. The bias or error may occur because an association that is observed among variables at an aggregate level does not necessarily exist at an individual level. …
Ecological psychology
An approach in psychology now firmly associated with James J. Gibson’s ecological optics and his theory of perceiving and acting as contained in his concept of affordance. It roots can be traced back to Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) and his topological theory of human behavior, and the theory of perception devised by Egon Brunswick (1903-1955). In …
Echolalia
Also called echophrasia, it is involuntary repetitive parroting of the words or speech fragments of others, sometimes including an exact replication of the speaker”s pattern of inflection. it can be immediate or delayed (e.g., repetition of television commercials), occurring minutes hours, days, weeks, months and even years after hearing the speech of others. While echolalia …
Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS)
An instrument devised by Thelma Harms, Richard M. Clifford and Denny Cryer for measuring aspects of the environment of pre-school children from 2.5 to 5 years of age, which can be considered to be measures of the quality of the preschool environment. It consists of 43 items assigned to 7 sub-scales: space and furnishing, personal care …
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Early Childhood Longitudinal Studies (ECLS)
Sponsored by the US National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), these studies focus on child development, child care, and the early school years and include two separate longitudinal panels: ECLS-B, that follows children from nine months of age through first grade, and ECLS-K, which follows through from kindergarten entry to fifth grade. See …
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Dystonia
A state of excessive or inadequate muscle tone. The term was coined by the neurologist Hermann Oppenheim (1858-1919) in 1911 to indicate that “muscle tone was hypotonic at one occasion and in tonic muscle spasm at another, usually, but exclusively, elicited upon volitional movements”, a definition that is still used. A transient form of dystonia …
Dysphoria
Generalized feelings of low or unpleasant mood (anguish, anxiety, uneasiness) often associated with depression. Gender dysphoria is a conflict of about one’s gender, gender assignment and gender identity that appears to occur more frequently in boys than girls. See Anhedonia, Gender, Gender identity, Major depressive disorder
Dysplasia
Any abnormal or pathological growth of tissues or organs resulting in the alteration in size, shape, and organisation of cells. This is contrasted with anaplasia (loss of structural differentiation within a cell or group of cells often with an increased chance of multiplication, as in a malignant tumour), aplasia (failure of some tissue or organ …
Dysmorphology
Abnormal physical or morphological growth, especially of a particular anatomical feature. As a branch of medicine, it combines concepts, knowledge, and techniques from the fields of embryology, clinical genetics and paediatrics. Term first used by David W. Smith (1926-1981) in the 1960s to describe the study of human congenital malformations (i.e., birth defects), particularly those …