The Origins Of Intelligence In Children

This book deals with the origins of intelligence in children and contains original observations on young children, novel experiments, brilliant in their simplicity,which the author describes in detail. Piaget divides the growth of intelligence into six sequential stages: the use of reflexes; the first acquired adaptations and primary circular reaction; secondary circular reactions and the child's procedures for prolonging spectacles interesting to him.

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A look at the origins of cognitive abilities in primate species. Since Darwin’s time, comparative psychologists have searched for a good way to compare cognition in humans and nonhuman primates. In Origins of Intelligence, Sue Parker and Michael McKinney offer such a framework and make a strong case for using human development theory (both Piagetian and neo-Piagetian) to study the evolution of intelligence across primate species. Their approach is comprehensive, covering a broad range of social, symbolic, physical, and logical domains, which fall under the all-encompassing and much-debated term intelligence. A widely held theory among developmental psychologists and social and biological anthropologists is that cognitive evolution in humans has occurred through juvenilization—the gradual accentuation and lengthening of childhood in the evolutionary process. In this work, however, Parker and McKinney argue instead that new stages were added at the end of cognitive development in our hominid ancestors, coining the term adultification by terminal extension to explain this process. Drawing evidence from scores of studies on monkeys, great apes, and human children, this book provides unique insights into ontogenetic constraints that have interacted with selective forces to shape the evolution of cognitive development in our lineage. “The authors’ elegant theory and comprehensive empirical synthesis of how the development of human intelligence and brain evolved opens up cascading heuristic avenues for creatively answering one of the great questions in the human history of ideas.” —Jonas Langer, Human Development “A handy source of information on comparative cognitive abilities related to life history and brain variables.” —James Anderson, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Since the first edition of this volume was published in 1976, interest in the problem of intelligence in general and infant intelligence in particu lar has continued to grow. The response to the first edition was hearten ing: many readers found it a source of information for the diverse areas of study in infant intelligence. Because of the success of that volume, we have decided to issue a second edition. This edition is in many ways both similar to and different from the first. Its similarity lies in the fact that many of the themes and many of the contributors remain the same. Its difference can be found in the updating of old chapters and the addition of several new ones. Taken together, the chapters present a rounded picture of the cen tral issues in infant intelligence. Because the aim was to present a picture of the issues, no attempt, other than the selection of authors and themes, can be made to integrate these chapters into a single coherent whole. In large part, this reflects the diversity of study found in the area of early intellectual behavior. Rather than having a comprehensive theo ry of infant intelligence, the field abounds with a series of critical ques tions. To unite these chapters into some coherence, it will be necessary to articulate what these issues might be. Five major themes run through out the field of infant intelligence and thus through this volume.

A Marginal Revolution Book of the Year After tracking the lives of thousands of people from birth to midlife, four of the world’s preeminent psychologists reveal what they have learned about how humans develop. Does temperament in childhood predict adult personality? What role do parents play in shaping how a child matures? Is day care bad—or good—for children? Does adolescent delinquency forecast a life of crime? Do genes influence success in life? Is health in adulthood shaped by childhood experiences? In search of answers to these and similar questions, four leading psychologists have spent their careers studying thousands of people, observing them as they’ve grown up and grown older. The result is unprecedented insight into what makes each of us who we are. In The Origins of You, Jay Belsky, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie Moffitt, and Richie Poulton share what they have learned about childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, about genes and parenting, and about vulnerability, resilience, and success. The evidence shows that human development is not subject to ironclad laws but instead is a matter of possibilities and probabilities—multiple forces that together determine the direction a life will take. A child’s early years do predict who they will become later in life, but they do so imperfectly. For example, genes and troubled families both play a role in violent male behavior, and, though health and heredity sometimes go hand in hand, childhood adversity and severe bullying in adolescence can affect even physical well-being in midlife. Painstaking and revelatory, the discoveries in The Origins of You promise to help schools, parents, and all people foster well-being and ameliorate or prevent developmental problems.