David J. Messer – författare

The book indentifies and assesses the importance of a range of influences on child language acquisition and development, paying particular attention to situational influences. Key issues are highlighted and recent research is presented. There are five sections: the deployment of speech during early development; linguistic interaction and family background - encoding the situation; multidimentional aspects of language development; and constraints on language development. There are twelve chapters on these themes.

cViews of children's psychological development have varied widely over the course of history, and still vary across cultures and political regimes. Having started from a philosophical perspective, with Locke's notion of a 'tabula rasa' and Rousseau's idea of innate qualities, the debate about mechanisms of child development has become a field of scientific endeavour that has grown dramatically in recent years.David Messer and Julie Dockrell bring together both classic papers and more recent publications which have already had an impact. Providing a balance of theoretical, empirical and review papers, they cover research on infants, children and adolescents. The readings are arranged in chronological order, with sections on Starting Off in Life, Language and Communication, Cognition and Representations, Literacy and Numeracy, Others and Their Influence, and Towards Adulthood. They also offer helpful suggestions about ways of using the reader and developing related study skills, as well as practical advice on writing essays and research papers.

All children possess a motive to ‘master’ the various tasks and problems that they face. Without mastery motivation, it is doubtful whether children would make progress in cognitive, social communicative and other domains. Although all children possess this motivation, it will vary according to inherited dispositions and to environmental experiences. This makes mastery motivation a key factor in understanding later developmental and educational achievement.Concentrating on pre-school children, this volume, originally published in 1993, brought together current research work and thinking concerned with mastery motivation at the time. New ideas are presented about the way mastery is related to other developmental processes such as self-concepts and attention. There are discussions and findings about innovations in the methods of assessing mastery. Another important theme present in this volume, is the way in which features of social interaction, attachment and the environment influence the development of mastery motivation.With a broad range of international contributors, this title will still be of interest to developmental psychologists and educationalists, and advance students in these fields.

All children possess a motive to ‘master’ the various tasks and problems that they face. Without mastery motivation, it is doubtful whether children would make progress in cognitive, social communicative and other domains. Although all children possess this motivation, it will vary according to inherited dispositions and to environmental experiences. This makes mastery motivation a key factor in understanding later developmental and educational achievement.Concentrating on pre-school children, this volume, originally published in 1993, brought together current research work and thinking concerned with mastery motivation at the time. New ideas are presented about the way mastery is related to other developmental processes such as self-concepts and attention. There are discussions and findings about innovations in the methods of assessing mastery. Another important theme present in this volume, is the way in which features of social interaction, attachment and the environment influence the development of mastery motivation.With a broad range of international contributors, this title will still be of interest to developmental psychologists and educationalists, and advance students in these fields.