Frances Degen Horowitz - Böcker

This volume examines the importance of prenatal, birth, and postnatal factors in determining the extent of "risk" that may be predicted for an infant in the first year of life and in early childhood. It offers the reader an up-to-date review of major research efforts toward understanding the circumstances that insure optimal developmental opportunities for all children. In the first chapter, Dr. Horowitz presents some of the basic issues concerning vulnerability of young infants and developmental hazards. Papers by Arnold Sameroff and Herbert Leiderman consider early infant-environment interactions as they relate to normal developmental processes and social bonding. Lewis Lipsitt examines data from the Collaborative Perinatal Project and from studies on Sudden Infant death Syndrome to propose some factors that contribute to the SIDS phenomenon. Trygg Engen reviews his research on the conditions that influence children to ingest harmful substances. The concluding chapter considers the implications of these papers for understanding environmental and biological conditions as they affect the developmental course of the infant and young child.

This book examines the importance of prenatal, birth, and postnatal factors in determining the extent of "risk" that may be predicted for an infant in the first year of life and in early childhood. It highlights the multiplicity of factors that contribute to "survival" in the developmental process.

Through the evaluation and integration of developmental theories, this volume proposes a new structural/behavioral model of development. Dr. Horowitz’s model helps account for both the behavioral development of children (with extensions across the life-span) and for the universal and non-universal characteristics in human behavioral development. Exploring Developmental Theories also sheds a new and different light on the nature- nurture or heredity-environment controversy and on the topic of continuity and discontinuity in development. Exploring Developmental Theories:*examines the concepts of stage, structure, and systems; organismic theory; and general system theory;*analyzes open and closed systems as well as organismic and mechanistic world views;*integrates the concepts associated with organismic and mechanist world views;*examines learning mechanisms and processes that foster the acquisition of behavior, and*discusses the strengths and weaknesses of Gessel, Piaget, and behaviorism in accounting for behavioral development.

Through the evaluation and integration of developmental theories, this volume proposes a new structural/behavioral model of development. Dr. Horowitz’s model helps account for both the behavioral development of children (with extensions across the life-span) and for the universal and non-universal characteristics in human behavioral development. Exploring Developmental Theories also sheds a new and different light on the nature- nurture or heredity-environment controversy and on the topic of continuity and discontinuity in development. Exploring Developmental Theories:*examines the concepts of stage, structure, and systems; organismic theory; and general system theory;*analyzes open and closed systems as well as organismic and mechanistic world views;*integrates the concepts associated with organismic and mechanist world views;*examines learning mechanisms and processes that foster the acquisition of behavior, and*discusses the strengths and weaknesses of Gessel, Piaget, and behaviorism in accounting for behavioral development.