What methodologies within the behavioral sciences have clinical application for the diagnosis and management of high risk and handicapped infants? Originally published in 1979, this volume not only deals with this issue, but illustrates the contributions that behavioral science may have offered those called upon to evaluate the cognitive consequences of perinatal high risk factors at the time. The inadequacies of some measures used to assess intellectual competence in retardates are juxtaposed with the sophisticated methodologies that may be employed to document early mental abilities. Also included are assessment procedures that bypass reliance on neuromotor performance, imitation, or language production. The authors draw attention to the discontinuous nature of cognitive development, to the possibility that mental and motor development may proceed independently, and to the plasticity of the developing CNS, which may overcome early deficits if underlying competences are recognized and exposed to appropriate stimulation. Here is a volume that does not simply catalog the nature of the child’s accomplishments and deficits, but emphasizes the need to examine his potential for learning, and offers various methodologies that may be of value in documenting the child’s continuing cognitive development. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1979. The language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.

What methodologies within the behavioral sciences have clinical application for the diagnosis and management of high risk and handicapped infants? Originally published in 1979, this volume not only deals with this issue, but illustrates the contributions that behavioral science may have offered those called upon to evaluate the cognitive consequences of perinatal high risk factors at the time. The inadequacies of some measures used to assess intellectual competence in retardates are juxtaposed with the sophisticated methodologies that may be employed to document early mental abilities. Also included are assessment procedures that bypass reliance on neuromotor performance, imitation, or language production. The authors draw attention to the discontinuous nature of cognitive development, to the possibility that mental and motor development may proceed independently, and to the plasticity of the developing CNS, which may overcome early deficits if underlying competences are recognized and exposed to appropriate stimulation. Here is a volume that does not simply catalog the nature of the child's accomplishments and deficits, but emphasizes the need to examine his potential for learning, and offers various methodologies that may be of value in documenting the child's continuing cognitive development. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1979. The language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.

Here is a major new work on human infancy written by one of the country's leading developmental psychologists and two distinguished colleagues. At its core is the long-awaited report of the authors' six-year study of infant day care. Important in its own right, this experiment becomes the occasion for a wide-ranging discussion of cognitive and emotional processes in infancy, of the effects of early experience on later growth, and of the deep-seated cultural and historical assumptions that underlie our views of human development. For those concerned with social policy, the book provides the best empirical assessment now available of the effects of group care on the psychological well-being of infants. It also supplies a blueprint for quality daycare that may well stand as a model for future nurseries. For those interested in the course of cognitive and emotional development, the book provides rich information about the major growth functions that characterize human infancy. It also outlines an explanation of these growth functions that links changes in emotional behavior to the maturation of underlying cognitive processes in a new and provocative way. And for everyone interested in human nature, the book of offers a controversial thesis about the discontinuity of psychological growth that challenges some of our most fundamental assumptions about the nature of individual development. For this paperback edition, the statistical summary has been removed from the appendix to shorten the work and make it even more appealing to the general reader.