What is Regression?
— Regression is a technique that allows a person to review past events in their lives and heal the painful and challenging moments that may be blocking their ability to live life fully. Sometimes the shadows of the past haunt our lives now, this technique can really give us a sense of freedom and peace and sometimes even a sense of feeling more control in our life.
It sounds like you are looking for the term regression in the case of childhood development. It is assumed that humans develop socially, emotionally, cognitively, etc, in a step wise or serial pattern – able to do more complex things or gain maturity when faced with a problem. When there is regression, it more or less means that developmentally for some reason, someone has taken a step back (usu. to childhood). I will give you two examples – one is fairly common in children. When a baby is born, toddlers or preschoolers may sometimes regress emotionally because of the new circumstances or that they see the baby is getting a lot of attention. So often they will start to act like a baby or start wetting their pants (regression in toilet learning). Another more pathological example is when a person undergoes a traumatic experience, some cope in regressing to a more comfortable (less stressful) period in their life, which is often childhood. They may even act similar to that age. Hope this