adverse childhood experiences: Experiences in a child’s life that have a negative impact on the child’s development. These include exposure to violence, the absence of a parent, and abuse (among others).
callous-unemotional traits: Behavioral traits that are used as a specifier in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders to help identify children who may require mental health assistance relating to underlying biological or environmental influences. Callous traits relate to behavior that is insensitive or cruel. When emotional reactions are very reduced or absent, the person is described as having unemotional traits.
causal pathways: The factors that lead to a specific outcome.
cognitive reappraisal: A strategy in psychology that relies on changing the way a situation is perceived if it cannot be changed. For example, if someone loses a home full of personal belongings, and is finding it hard to cope with that fact, emotional stress can be relieved by taking a more positive (or neutral perspective). In this case, the person might focus on the fact that nobody died in the fire.
cognitive science: An interdisciplinary study of mental processes. It draws from the fields of psychology, linguistics, philosophy, computer science and neuroscience.
dendrite: The long branch, or tail, or a neuron that facilitates the electrochemical transfer of information from cell to cell within a neural network.
early disruptive behavior: Behavior that can be identified as having a frequent negative influence on relationships in schools and in families. These include physical aggression, argumentativeness, stealing, and temper tantrums.
fearless temperament: A temperament that is characterized by frequent insensitivity to fear, which often contributes to aggressive behavior.
functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI): Technology that measures changes in blood flow within the brain to identify the regions that are used during activity, and during cognitive and emotional processes. It is an enhanced version of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), which relies on magnetic fields and radio waves to study the structure of the brain.
interpersonal sharing effect: The experience of shared mental processes in response to another person’s experiences.
neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to modify neural pathways (in response to experience and environment) by removing or strengthening connections between neurons.
nonspecific deviant behavior: Behavior that goes against societal norms. The term was originally used to help diagnose behavior in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, but it was considered too broad to be useful. It was explained and redefined as a specifier using the term ‘callous-unemotional traits.’
poor emotional regulation: The term used to describe an inability to use cognitive processes to control behavior, leading to self-harm or the harm of others.
predictive coding: A ‘top-down’ process that originates in cognitive regions of the brain and moves toward the nerves, rather than originating in the nerves and moving toward the cognitive region (bottom up) as in most sensory processes.
preprimary: a description of early education that groups preschool and kindergarten together, which includes programs that use mixed-age classrooms.
preschool: programs that serve three- and four-year-olds. Classrooms that serve children younger than three are called infant, nido, and toddler programs.
social cognition: The automatic and controlled processes in the brain that govern social interactions.
social emotional learning: The process of developing the skills to manage emotions, especially emotions that effect interpersonal relationships.
trauma-informed care: A mental health treatment framework that takes into consideration the traumatic experiences of an individual, and the many ways those experiences contribute to perspective and behavior.
trauma-informed theory: The justification for policies and procedures that is based on the concept of trauma-informed care.
voxel peak: A voxel is a datapoint that conveys three-dimensional space in terms of pixels in digital imaging, such as in functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. When a region of the brain is active, the change in blood flow is recorded as being enhanced.