Category: S

Alternate term for dwarfism, resulting from a growth disorder. A term applied to individuals who are among the shortest 5 percent of people for their age and sex. Short stature may be a symptom of a medical condition, such as delayed or precocious puberty, hypothyroidism, or skeletal dysplasia, or it may represent a normal inherited…

A disorder found among women who have had massive hemorrhaging associated with childbirth. The pituitary gland may cease to function partially or totally, leading to loss of lactation, malfunction of many other glands in the body, and sometimes even death. Hypopituitarism resulting from an infarct of the pituitary following postpartum shock or hemorrhage. Damage to…

A learning style in which materials are carefully structured so that ever-more-complex tasks build on earlier work.  

The first stage of children’s learning, according to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.  

Any of the five avenues by which someone receives information: seeing (visual), hearing (auditory), touching (tactile), smelling (olfactory), and-tasting (gustatory), plus the sense of the body’s motion (kinesthetic, sometimes called haptic). According to Piaget’s theory, the first stage of a child’s cognitive development is the sensory- motor (or sensorimotor) stage, during which children gain an…

In the Montessori method, use of materials designed to enhance a child’s use of the various sensory modes or modalities for learning.  

The type of ear and hearing problem that involves a malfunction or disorder in the inner ear or the nerves that carry sound to the brain. Sensorineural losses are permanent and more severe than conductive losses; at the present stage of medical knowledge, they cannot be cured or even reduced by a doctor’s treatment, but…

A type of vegetarian diet that excludes red meat but allows some poultry and fish. Semivegetarian is the type of vegetarian who excludes only red meat from his or her diet.  

Originally a period of six months, but in education today, two equal periods that often make up the school year, each far short of six months; common alternatives are trimesters (three equal periods) or quarters (four equal periods).  

A somewhat restricted policy toward admission to a school.