Tamis-LeMonda-Preface

viii   Preface

remain isolated from critical material on developmental processes, or include the information as tag-on sentences buried in the main text. In contrast, Child Development: Context, Culture, and Cascades showcases the themes of con- text and culture in every chapter, with subheadings that underscore how family, peer groups, school, culture, and other influences contribute to developmental processes. Developmental Cascades The concept of a developmental cascade captures the idea that changes in one domain of development can reverberate across other domains and time. The theme of developmental cascades is woven into the fabric of Child Development: Context, Culture, and Cascades through dedi- cated sections in each chapter that illustrate such inter- connections. For example, changes in motor develop- ment, such as the ability to walk, spill over to domains of cognitive, language, and social development, as infants develop new ways of navigating their environments, expand their interactions with people around them, and begin to hear new sentences, such as “Don’t touch that!” Similarly, the developmental timing of puberty can affect adolescents’ interactions with peers and parents, sexual behaviors, and attitudes toward school. Thus, this book rejects artificial distinctions among skills and embraces the idea of a “whole child.” Child Development: Context, Culture, and Cascades addresses developmental cascades in a major heading at the end of most chapters, with subsections offering illus- trative examples of how changes in the area of develop- ment discussed in the chapter reverberate across other domains and time. This approach contrasts with existing books that either omit critical material around develop- mental cascades or provide limited coverage. Research Methods Most developmental textbooks present research meth- ods in an opening chapter on measurement and study design before offering students mere snapshots of meth- ods in later chapters. Child Development: Context, Culture, and Cascades , in contrast, includes a dedicated chapter on foundations, theories, and methods and also pro- vides chapter-specific overviews of the methods that researchers use to study different areas of development

at different periods of development. For example, the chapter on infant cognitive development describes look- ing-time studies (e.g., habituation); explains why such studies are a cornerstone of infancy research (because babies can’t tell researchers what they know or remem- ber); and tackles questions about how much researchers should infer about infant understanding from looking behaviors. The goal is to arm students with a thorough understanding of how to do research, and to then apply that knowledge to exercises at the end of chapters that ask students to design their own studies (for example) to address hypothetical questions. By learning and doing, students will come to appreciate how to tackle critical development questions with an eye toward age-appro- priate measures and methods relevant to the domain of interest. Dedicated Chapter on Language Development in Infancy The path to language is one of the most inspiring and frequently studied topics in child development. Typing the words “language” and “development” into scholarly search engines yields over 4 million hits (equivalent to hits for cognitive, social, and emotional development). More- over, a plurality of talks at professional conferences are dedicated to language development, and funding agencies have entire departments that review proposals to support such research. Perhaps most centrally, language skills spill over to all domains (think about the language required to engage with school material, foster friendships, and negotiate conflicts with parents). However, language remains the lonely stepchild in textbooks to date, typical- ly subsumed under cognitive development. In contrast, Child Development: Context, Culture, and Cascades includes a dedicated chapter that showcases the rapid changes to language during infancy and toddlerhood—as the cooing and babbling of young infants evolve into the words and sentences of toddlers. By delving deeply into key aspects of early language development, how researchers measure such skills, how language abilities change, and cascading influences to other domains, readers are equipped with foundational knowledge that scaffolds a deeper apprecia- tion of the language topics that are systematically expand- ed on in later chapters.