This book addresses the most significant and recent issues of infant and child psychiatry, examining topics from clinical care and research perspectives as well as from the perspectives of policies and programmes.

Infant mental health, an emerging discipline, stands at the threshold of momentous advances that illuminate the links between clinical observations and the developing brain of the infant. This book is an invaluable guide to the clinician seeking insight into the relationship of developmental, cognitive, and neuroscience research findings in infant mental health and illness. Significant recent studies reveal the extensive effects of experiences within families and communities on infant development. Varied research topics are reviewed, including fetal sensory responses, infant physiology, and parent-infant speech patterns. The problem of how to implement the cascading information about infants on a broad public-health scale, including topics from international health care strategies to the concept of 'educare', is discussed.
As the first book in The Mentor Series of the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions, it is written and edited by the foremost authorities in the field of child and adolescent mental health. It uses multiple levels of conceptualisation, from the infant's response to the feel and smell of a mother's skin, to how clinical knowledge informs broad policies affecting millions of children.
Presented with clarity in a thorough and well-organized fashion to professionals caring for children around the world, The Infant and Family in the Twenty-First Century refines the most significant current knowledge concerning infants and identifies major themes regarding the optimal development of infants and families.

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