Introduction to Infant Development

by Slater, Alan; Lewis, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780199283057
• ISBN10: 0199283052
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Infants may seem to do little more than eat, sleep, and play. Yet behind this misleadingly simplistic facade occurs an awe-inspiring process of development through which infants make sense of, and learn how to interact with the world around them. Written by leading researchers in the field, Introduction to Infant Development, Second Edition, provides fascinating insight into the psychological development of infants. This new edition captures the latest research in the field, with new chapters on perceptual and cognitive development as well as memory development; the text also examines the role of gender, culture, and social class in infant development. The coverage of language development and motor development has also been revised to account for the latest research. With enhanced pedagogical features throughout and a new Online Resource Center, Introduction to Infant Development is the ideal teaching and learning tool for those studying this intriguing field.

Table of Contents

History and Methods

A Brief History of Infancy Research

Our earliest memories

Baby diaries

Coming of age: towards the present day

The first studies: social development

The next studies: attentional and cognitive development

The last studies: emotional development

Key issues in infancy research

Overview

Basic Methods in Infant Research

How do researchers figure out what non-verbal infants know and feel?

Sensory capacities

Cognition and learning

Social-emotional behavior

Conclusions

The Foundations of Development

Prenatal Development

Introduction

Key issues

Physical development

Behavior of the fetus

Fetal senses

Fetal learning

Functions of behavior

Birth and labor

Newborn senses

Conclusions

Motor Development in Infancy

Overview by Alan Slater

Introduction

Theories of motor development

Systems theories

The role of experience and learning

Recapitulation

The Development of the Senses

Theories, questions, and methods

Touch

Taste

Smell

Hearing--sound, voices and speech

Visual perception

Posture and balance

Co-ordination between the senses

From sensation to perception to cognition

Cognitive Development

The Growth of Intelligence in Infancy

Introduction

The Piagetian approach

The information processing approach

The psychometric approach

An integration of approaches

Acknowledgements

Categorization

Historical views briefly considered

Categorization in infants

What kinds of categories do infants represent?

Current issues

Concluding remarks

Acknowledgements

Space and Objects

Introduction

Nature and nurture again: the problem of the missing dimensions

Object perception

Language Development: From Speech Perception to First Words

Introduction

Perceiving distinctions among speech sounds

Coping with variability

The role of experience in the development of phonetic categories

How linguistic experience affects other aspects of speech processing

Extracting and learning the sounds of words

Statistics and rules

Overview

Acknowledgements

Social and Emotional Development

How Infants Perceive Faces

Introduction

Are faces special to infants?

Infant face recognition

Infant preferences for different types of faces

Perceiving emotional expressions

Role of faces for social development

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Early Emotional DevelopmencMichael Lewis

Introduction

A model of emotional development

Early or primary emotions

Self-consciousness

Self-conscious emotions

Self-conscious evaluative emotions

Social DevelopmencMichael Lewis

Introduction

Social nexus

People in the infant's

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