This volume provides a thorough examination of the interplay between individuals and their environment in the development and maintenance of problem behaviors, and delineates procedures for conducting assessment, intervention, and prevention within the child's ecosystem. As individuals structure, change, and organize their environments, their environments work to do the same. Environmental or contextual and individual variables act reciprocally to shape an individual's behavior. For school-aged youth, this reality necessitates an ecological approach to assessment, intervention, and prevention. Specifically, problem behaviors are partly developed and maintained by a combination of factors present in the child's psychosocial ecosystem -- home, school, and community. Although there is an abundance of theoretical applications and research supporting this concept, the predominant trend has been to emphasize the properties of the person. As a result, one is left to assume that the genesis of difficulties in adaptation lies in internal or personal states and traits of the individual.
In contrast to traditional psychology theories which focus primarily on the individual, incorporation of ecological psychology concepts allows for a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of sources contributing to the individual's ability to adapt to their psychosocial environment. Ecological theories which drive assessment, intervention, and prevention efforts provide the necessary framework for assisting school-aged youth and their associated ecological networks to cope with and overcome the multidetermined, multifaceted concerns that arise during the school years. However, this is an often difficult and cumbersome task for educators, parents, and school systems to undertake.
To this end, this volume focuses on the functional application of ecological psychology for schools within communities. Each of the 10 chapters -- written by key figures in school, family, counseling, and community psychology -- explores the use of ecological theory from a different perspective, ranging from focus on the child, the child within the classroom, the classroom teacher, and the community to considerations in working with special populations such as juvenile delinquents and in planning for developmental issues such as school-to-work-transition. The final chapter summarizes and integrates the previous chapters and provides suggestions for future directions in the field.

Inaccuracies in Children's Testimony combines the literature on obedience to authority with that on suggestibility to create a third literature. This book examines children's testimony from several perspectives and gives you insightful suggestions for increasing children's abilities to testify accurately about traumatic things that have happened to them. In doing so, you'll learn how to ensure that those who abuse or sexually exploit children are brought to justice while those falsely accused are adequately protected.How children are questioned to learn what they have witnessed is crucial due to the effects the questioning sessions may have on their testimonies--improper questioning may lead to inaccurate answers. This is just one of the many areas of children's testimony covered in Inaccuracies in Children's Testimony. In each of the chapters you'll discover new ways for increasing the accuracy and dependability of children's testimony as you read about: factors that affect children's testimonies suggestibility--definition and research, including sources of suggestibility how obedience to authority can explain children's behavior as witnesses children's memory in the courtroom and what they are able to remember how children's involvement in the courts can be problematic free versus prompted recall--which is more accurate and why the "worst" method is often used with children Milgram's theory of obedience to authority tied to children as witnesses review of the literature on the effects of stress, prompting, and imagination on children's recall ideas for future researchExperts in the field of legal testimony, legal personnel, child counselors, psychologists, social workers, and faculty and students of related courses will find Inaccuracies in Children's Testimony an essential resource for understanding the importance of making the child victim/witness more believable and reliable.

Inaccuracies in Children's Testimony combines the literature on obedience to authority with that on suggestibility to create a third literature. This book examines children's testimony from several perspectives and gives you insightful suggestions for increasing children's abilities to testify accurately about traumatic things that have happened to them. In doing so, you'll learn how to ensure that those who abuse or sexually exploit children are brought to justice while those falsely accused are adequately protected.How children are questioned to learn what they have witnessed is crucial due to the effects the questioning sessions may have on their testimonies--improper questioning may lead to inaccurate answers. This is just one of the many areas of children's testimony covered in Inaccuracies in Children's Testimony. In each of the chapters you'll discover new ways for increasing the accuracy and dependability of children's testimony as you read about: factors that affect children's testimonies suggestibility--definition and research, including sources of suggestibility how obedience to authority can explain children's behavior as witnesses children's memory in the courtroom and what they are able to remember how children's involvement in the courts can be problematic free versus prompted recall--which is more accurate and why the "worst" method is often used with children Milgram's theory of obedience to authority tied to children as witnesses review of the literature on the effects of stress, prompting, and imagination on children's recall ideas for future researchExperts in the field of legal testimony, legal personnel, child counselors, psychologists, social workers, and faculty and students of related courses will find Inaccuracies in Children's Testimony an essential resource for understanding the importance of making the child victim/witness more believable and reliable.

Jean Piaget was one of the most salient and inspirational figures in psychological and educational research this century. He was prolific, authoring or editing over eighty books and numerous journal papers which have spawned a huge and fertile continuation of his research over the decades. A major component of any course on children's psychological development and a research tradition that is expanding, scholars need access to the original texts rather than relying on secondhand accounts. "Jean Piaget: Selected Works" is a chance to acquire key original texts, most of which have been previously unavailable for several years.

One of the most profound insights of the dynamic systems perspective is that new structures resulting from the developmental process do not need to be planned in advance, nor is it necessary to have these structures represented in genetic or neurological templates prior to their emergence. Rather, new structures can emerge as components of the individual and the environment self-organize; that is, as they mutually constrain each other's actions, new patterns and structures may arise. This theoretical possibility brings into developmental theory the important concept of indeterminism--the possibility that developmental outcomes may not be predictable in any simple linear causal way from their antecedents.
This is the first book to take a critical and serious look at the role of indeterminism in psychological and behavioral development.
* What is the source of this indeterminism?
* What is its role in developmental change?
* Is it merely the result of incomplete observational data or error in measurement?
It reviews the concepts of indeterminism and determinism in their historical, philosophical, and theoretical perspectives--particularly in relation to dynamic systems thinking--and applies these general ideas to systems of nonverbal communication. Stressing the indeterminacy inherent to symbols and meaning making in social systems, several chapters address the issue of indeterminism from metaphorical, modeling, and narrative perspectives. Others discuss those indeterministic processes within the individual related to emotional, social, and cognitive development.

Jean Piaget was one of the most salient and inspirational figures in psychological and educational research this century. He was prolific, authoring or editing over eighty books and numerous journal papers which have spawned a huge and fertile continuation of his research over the decades. A major component of any course on children's psychological development and a research tradition that is expanding, scholars need access to the original texts rather than relying on secondhand accounts. "Jean Piaget: Selected Works" is a chance to acquire key original texts, most of which have been previously unavailable for several years.

Jean Piaget was one of the most salient and inspirational figures in psychological and educational research of the 20th century. He was also prolific, authoring or editing over 80 books and numerous journals and papers which spawned a continuation of his work over the following decades. His work now compromises a major component of many courses on children's psychological development and in a research tradition which is expanding, scholars may need access to the original texts rather than secondhand accounts. This volume is the third of nine reproducing Piaget's original works - they are also available as a boxed set.

Jean Piaget was one of the most salient and inspirational figures in psychological and educational research this century. He was prolific, authoring or editing over eighty books and numerous journal papers which have spawned a huge and fertile continuation of his research over the decades. A major component of any course on children's psychological development and a research tradition that is expanding, scholars need access to the original texts rather than relying on secondhand accounts. "Jean Piaget: Selected Works" is a chance to acquire key original texts, most of which have been previously unavailable for several years.

This volume provides a primarily nontechnical summary of experimental and theoretical work conducted over the course of 35 years which resulted in a developmental framework capable of integrating causal influences at the genetic, neural, behavioral, and ecological levels of analysis. It describes novel solutions to the nature-nurture problem at both the empirical and theoretical levels. Following field observations, laboratory experiments led to the discovery of the nonobvious prenatal experiential basis of instinctive behavior in two species--ground-nesting mallard ducklings and hole-nesting wood ducklings. This work also describes the experiences that lead to the rigid canalization of behavioral development as well as the social and sensory experiences that favor the continuance of flexibility. The author also describes in detail a developmental psychobiological systems view that supports a behaviorally and psychologically mediated pathway to evolutionary change in humans and other species. Written in a way that is readable to even the nonspecialist, the text is accompanied by numerous photographs that illuminate and add personal meaning to the written words. Readers will be engaged by the emphasis on the human aspect of the scientific enterprise.

This book and the symposium on which it was based were designed to cross the boundaries of subdiscipline and theoretical orientation to address four critical issues in understanding development: explanation of change and development; the nature and process of change; forms of variability in performance; and the promotion of change through application.

The chapters suggest that change and development in target systems from cells to selves, may not be explainable, assessable, or promotable without careful reference to the context (social and otherwise) of the system, and that the process of change and development may involve variability of the system in addition to periods of stability. Together the chapters harken back to the spirit of the grand theory.

Instead of proposing a grand theory, they provide an excellent foundation for considering the importance of an individual's (or particular group's) context and variability, and discussions to facilitate thinking about what still needs to be worked out.

The association between parents' behaviour and children's cognitive development is at the meeting place of several prominent theories of psychological development and a range of complex methodological and conceptual issues. On the one hand there are theories which argue that the impetus of development is within the child and is largely unaffected by his or her experience of social interaction: on the other are the commonsense experience of parents and educators, and the body of neo-Vygotskian theory, which would see the child's development as profoundly affected by social interaction or even constituted by it. The purpose of this book is to examine theories and evidence carefully in order to assess the causal links between parent behaviour and children's cognitive development.
There is a considerable amount of evidence that suggests an association between parents' behaviour and their children's cognitive development; but there are many possible explanations for this association, including direct effects of parental teaching styles on the children's learning and motivation, differential social class practices and opportunities, genetic resemblances, and methodological artifacts. A close and critical look at a wide range of research and of theory is necessary if the causal questions are to be clarified.
This book develops the current arguments about the nature and causes of cognitive development, providing a critical discussion of the available research and relating it to psychological theory. It is suitable for advanced students of psychology and education.

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Studies involving children with mental, emotional, or behavioral problems--or their families--have to meet certain standards of research ethics. This book contains chapters on the kinds of ethical dilemmas that typically occur in different types of studies of children, and then presents 65 real-world cases from experts who study children's mental health. These experts offer practical suggestions for how to handle these dilemmas. Chapters on the perspectives of parents, regulators, and bioethicists provide additional points of view on these issues. Written in down-to-earth language, this book will be useful for professionals who study children, for those who train students in research methods, and for parents who are thinking about participating in research studies.
In attempting to bridge the apparent gap between ethics and science, the editors close this volume on a note commonly sounded by researchers: more research is needed. Yet in this area, a new kind of research is required. The science of scientific ethics must be developed and expanded, and better understanding of the determinants and circumstances under which children can comprehend and evaluate risks and benefits is needed. Likewise, fuller knowledge of the contextual factors affecting children's and families' consent to participate in research is essential. In particular, development of scales to assess children's ability to comprehend risk-benefit issues, studies of families' reactions to research procedures, and empirical data on the impact of various forms of participant reimbursement will advance both science and ethics. This volume should spur further research, serving as a guide for current investigators, participating families, institutional review boards, and policymakers who shape the research enterprise.

Being sick is a normal part of childhood, and being seriously ill is the unfortunate lot of many children. Every child in the United States has some contact with the healthcare system at some time, and it is estimated that one of every two children or adolescents is hospitalized as a result of illness or injury. Being injured, undergoing routine medical procedures, getting sick, or being hospitalized confront children with challenges on many levels--physical, mental, emotional, and social.
The premise of this volume is that developmental and psychological factors are central elements in many current problems in child health such as persistent crying in infants, sources of children's injury and respiratory illness, children's coping with medical procedures, childhood trauma, and physical and mental well-being in adolescence. Understanding, promoting, and maintaining children's health, therefore, depend to a great extent--and are likely to depend even more in the future--on elucidating the determinants and consequences of children's and parents' health-related behaviors and attitudes.
Chapter contributors include physicians and psychologists who apply principles of developmental and social psychology to their research on specific problems in children's health. Their offerings delineate current areas of collaboration between developmental psychology and behavioral pediatrics. These perspectives should prompt researchers and practitioners to explore additional ways in which more extensive endeavors at the interface of these two disciplines will facilitate efforts to understand children's health behaviors and foster children's well-being. Attention to this work should lead to moredirect clinical applicability and translation for preventive policy strategies as well as therapeutic interventions.

The term "skill" encompasses an array of topics and issues. For example, individuals are skilled in a variety of domains such as chess, typing, air traffic control, or knitting; researchers study skill in a variety of ways, including speed of acquisition, accuracy of performance, and retention over time; and there are a variety of approaches to the study of skill such as computer modeling or experimental analysis. Contributing to the understanding of whether, how, when, and why skills may decline as a function of age is the goal of this volume.
This book is based on the Aging and Skill Conference sponsored by the Center for Applied Cognitive Research on Aging. The broad focus of the conference was to discuss cognitive theories underlying age-related skill acquisition, transfer, and retention and to discuss applications of these theories to such issues as age-adaptive training, compensatory strategies and devices, and utilization of new and existing technology. The contributors were asked to discuss the cognitive theory relevant to their topic, explain how the theory informs the field about aging, examine where gaps exist among general cognitive theory in this area and theories of aging, and demonstrate the practical relevance of the theory to enhancing or enabling activities of daily living--for work, home, or leisure--for older adults.
This is the first book to focus exclusively on aging and skill. It covers a range of abilities, provides the theoretical basis for the current status of age-related differences in skill, and offers direct evidence of the applicability of research on proficiency to aspects of daily living. Each chapter was written either by an expert in the field of aging, or by an expert in the field of skill--many expert in both areas.

Concern with stress and coping has a long history in biomedical, psychological and sociological research. The inadequacy of simplistic models linking stressful life events and adverse physical and psychological outcomes was pointed out in the early 1980s in a series of seminal papers and books. The issues and theoretical models discussed in this work shaped much of the subsequent research on this topic and are reflected in the papers in this volume. The shift has been away from identifying associations between risks and outcomes to a focus on factors and processes that contribute to diversity in response to risks. Based on the Family Research Consortium's fifth summer institute, this volume focuses on stress and adaptability in families and family members. The papers explore not only how a variety of stresses influence family functioning but also how family process moderates and mediates the contribution of individual and environmental risk and protective factors to personal adjustment. They reveal the complexity of current theoretical models, research strategies and analytic approaches to the study of risk, resiliency and vulnerability along with the central role risk, family process and adaptability play in both normal development and childhood psychopathology.

Early emotional development, emotional regulation, and the links between emotion and social or cognitive functioning in atypically developing children have not received much attention. This lack is due in part to the priorities given to the educational and therapeutic needs of these children. Yet an understanding of the basic emotional processes in children with atypical development can only serve to promote more effective strategies for teaching and intervening in the lives of these children and their families and may contribute to our understanding of basic emotional processes as well.
When referring to "emotions," the editors mean some complex set of processes or abilities, whether or not the topic is normal or atypical development. Specifically, they use the term "emotion" to refer to at least three things -- emotional expressions, emotional states, and emotional experiences. The focus of this volume, these three aspects of emotional life are affected by socialization practices, maturational change, and individual biological differences including, in this case, differences in children as a function of disability. Contributors examine the development of emotions in children with organic or psychological disorders as well as those in compromised social contexts making this volume of prime importance to developmental, clinical, and social psychologists, educators, and child mental health experts.

First published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The culmination of 15 years of research by a Turkish psychologist who was educated in the West, this volume examines both the theoretical and practical aspects of cross-cultural psychology. It takes a contextual-developmental-functional approach linking the child, family, and society as they are embedded in culture. A refreshingly different view, the author presents a portrait of human development from "the other side"--from the perspective of the "majority world." In a world seemingly dominated by American psychology, she proposes the cross-cultural orientation as a corrective to the culture-boundedness of much of Euro-American psychology.
Analyzing human development in context while avoiding the pitfalls of extreme relativism, this work studies development with an inclusive, holistic, and ecological perspective, focusing on the development of the self and of competence. In so doing, it also attempts to combine cultural contextualism with universalistic standards and psychological processes. It proposes a theory of family change which challenges some commonly held modernization assumptions, and links theory and application while examining the role of psychology in inducing social change.

This book provides a comprehensive understanding of youth development and protection in the Indian context. It reviews the demographic and socio-economic background and future prospects of Indian youth. The book discusses the role of family and culture in the upbringing and development of youth, changing political and socio-economic situations, and the influence of parents and teachers in shaping the future of the youth. The book highlights the nature of adversities faced by children and youth and the subsequent impact on their mental health and well-being. It also examines the efficacy of various skill development programmes and national and international policies designed for the youth. The book will be of interest to students, teachers, and researchers of population sciences, population studies, psychology, childhood studies, development studies, sociology, and youth studies. It will also be of interest to policymakers and NGOs working with children and youth.

Research on the development of metaphor abilities in children can be dated back as far as 1960, with Asch and Nerlove's pioneering study, which concluded that children were unable to understand metaphors until middle or even late childhood. However, the study of metaphor in children did not take off until the 1970s; research continued to show metaphor as a relatively late-developing skill, based on children's inability to paraphrase correctly metaphoric sentences presented out of any situational or narrative context.
In the past decade, research into the development of figurative language has broadened considerably in scope. Efforts have been underway to demonstrate the cognitive underpinnings of the ability to make sense of figurative language and to demonstrate the role of metaphor and its cousin, analogy, in the development of cognition.
Metaphor is now considered to be a central aspect of language and thought and thus a crucial variable in cognitive development. The articles in this issue support the claim that no longer can any theory of language acquisition afford to ignore how children are able to recognize the distinction between what is said and what is meant and how they are able to grasp what is meant when people say things they do not mean.

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Despite the rise of clinical interest in posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic stress in children, there has been little attention paid to the impact of sibling death as a traumatic event. Although there is much evidence that children suffer long-lasting consequences of such trauma as divorce or the loss of a parent, the loss of a sibling has not been the topic of substantial clinical or research attention. The sibling relationship has only begun to receive research and theoretical attention. The complexities of the sibling bond as it changes and evolves over the life-span have only begun to be explored. The death of a child has generally been considered one of the most stressful events encountered by families in our society. The chronicity of illnesses such as cystic fibrosis is in a sense new, an outgrowth of recent advances in medical treatment which have considerably extended the lives of children stricken with leukemia, cystic fibrosis, HIV-infection, diabetes, and others. This book explores the long-term consequences of chronic illness followed by the death of a sibling on adult adjustment. The illness and loss of the child will have a direct impact on the siblings, dependent upon their own capacity to give meaning to its occurrence and to mourn the loss effectively. In addition, the sibling's world will be inexorably shaped by the handling of the illness and loss by the parents.

1. While previous books have offered social work perspectives or research on the victims of such crimes, this is the first to offer a criminological typology of the offenders. 2. This book connects academic research to practice, considering the implications for law enforcement, investigation and prevention.

Designed to provide practical information to those who are concerned with the development of young children, this book has three goals. First, the authors offer details about patterns of language development over the first three years of life. Although intensive studies have been carried out by examining from one to 20 children in the age range of zero to three years, there has been no longitudinal study of a sample as large as this--53 children--nor have as many measures of language development been obtained from the same children. Examining language development from a broad perspective in this size population allows us to see what generalizations can be made about patterns of language development.
This volume's second goal is to examine the impact of such factors as biology, cognition, and communication input--and the interaction of these factors--which traditionally have been held to play an important role in the course of language development. The comparative influence of each--and the interaction of all three--were examined statistically using children's scores on standard language tests at age three.
The volume's third goal is to provide information to beginning investigators, early childhood educators, and clinicians that can help them in their practice. This includes information about what appear to be good early predictors of language development at three years; language assessment procedures that can be used with children below age three, how these procedures can be used, what they tell us about the language development of young children; and what warning signs should probably be attended to, and which can most likely be ignored. In addition, suggestions are made about what patterns of communicative interaction during the different periods of development seem to be most successful in terms of language development outcomes at three years, and what overall indications the study offers regarding appropriate intervention.

Based on the First Biannual Lifespan Development Conference, this volume offers a multidisciplinary and multidimensional approach to the study of lifespan development in the areas of neuropsychology, cognition, behavior genetics, and perception. The objective of the conference was to provide a lively forum for the discussion of issues related to lifespan development and to reflect on important topics challenging the field during the 1990s. The chapters in this book, motivated by the conference presentations, cover:
* the assessment and evaluation of developmental changes in visual perception;
* the contribution of behavioral genetic factors to development;
* the predictability of perinatal risk factors as they relate to cognitive and linguistic outcomes;
* the neuropsychological changes during aging; and
* innovative approaches to the study of cognitive development using neuropsychological testing methods.