The Dynamic Infant

"Activities to enhance infant and toddler development. B/W photos. A review of how infants and toddlers learn about the world and themselves, roles the adult should assume in play."--Amazon.

Microdevelopment is the process of change in abilities, knowledge and understanding during short time-spans. This book presents a new process-orientated view of development and learning based on recent innovations in psychology research. Instead of characterising abilities at different ages, researchers investigate processes of development and learning that evolve through time and explain what enables progress in them. Four themes are highlighted: variability, mechanisms that create transitions to higher levels of knowledge, interrelations between changes in the short-term scale of microdevelopment and the crucial effect of context. Learning and development are analysed in and out of school, in the individual's activities and through social interaction, in relation to simple and complex problems and in everyday behaviour and novel tasks. With contributions from the foremost researchers in the field Microdevelopment will be essential reading for all interested in cognitive and developmental science.

Handbook of Dynamics in Parent-Child Relations provides an innovative, interdisciplinary perspective on theory, research, and methodology of dynamic processes in parent-child relations. Edited by distinguished scholar Leon Kuczynski, this accessible volume is divided into six parts. Part I concerns dyadic processes in parent-child relationships and provides the conceptual grounding for the volume as a whole. Parts II and III examine the agency of the child and the agency of the parent, respectively. Part IV considers dynamics in the parent-child dyad as they are mediated by or impact on various lifespan, cultural, and ecological contexts. Part 5 addresses the methodological implications of adopting a dynamic process view of parent-child relations. Part 6 weighs future directions for theory, research, and practice. Interdisciplinary in scope, Handbook of Dynamics in Parent-Child Relations will appeal to academics, professionals, graduate students, and senior-level undergraduates involved with Developmental Psychology, Family Science, Human Ecology, and Family Sociology.

Integrating cutting-edge research from multiple disciplines, this book provides a dynamic and holistic picture of the developing infant mind. Contributors explore the transactions among genes, the brain, and the environment in the earliest years of life. The volume probes the neural correlates of core sensory, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social capacities. It highlights the importance of early relationships, presenting compelling findings on how parent-infant interactions influence neural processing and brain maturation. Innovative research methods are discussed, including applications of behavioral, hormonal, genetic, and brain imaging technologies.