Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

As a best-selling, chronologically organized child development text, Berk Infants, Children, and Adolescents is relied upon in classrooms worldwide for its clear, engaging writing style and its commitment to examining the latest theory and research. Berk takes an integrated approach to presenting development in the cognitive, physical, emotional, and social domains; emphasizes the complex interchange between biology and environment; and provides exceptional attention to culture. The most recent scholarship in the field is presented in a manageable and relevant way. Students are drawn in by Berks signature storytelling style and learn beside the texts characters who experience real issues in development, including physical, cognitive, and peer challenges, as well as parenting and educational concerns. Students will recognize many topics of profound significance in todays world, such as poverty, welfare reform, health care, child-care quality, physical punishment, the obesity epidemic, and bilingual education, and learn what researchers have found about their impact on children.In the Fifth Edition, Infants, Children, and Adolescents has an even stronger emphasis on the interplay between biology and environment. Several reviewers of the fifth edition judge the coverage of brain and motor development to be the best in any child development text on the market today. Many aspects of the childs environment are considered, including home, extended family, school, neighborhood, community, social policy, and cultural influences. With unparalleled cross-cultural references, Infants, Children, and Adolescents, Fifth Edition is an indispensable resource for anyone caring for children in an increasingly global community. Throughout the Fifth Edition, Berk creates even stronger connections between developmental domains, and takes more opportunities to ask students to Connect topics to those in previous chapters. Berk also helps students connect their learning to their personal or professional areas of interest. Her voice comes through when speaking directly to students about issues they will face in their future pursuits as parents, educators, social workers, health care providers, and others who work to secure the welfare of children.This book is also available in an abridged paperbound version, Infants and Children: Prenatal Through Middle Childhood, comprised of Chapters 1-13.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• I Theory and Research in Child Development
• 1 History, Theory, and Research Strategies
• The Field of Child Development
• Basic Issues
• Historical Foundations
• Mid-Twentieth-Century Theories
• Recent Theoretical Perspectives
• Comparing Child Development Theories
• Studying the Child
• II Foundations of Development
• 2 Biological and Environmental Foundations
• Genetic Foundations
• Reproductive Choices
• Environmental Contexts for Development
• Understanding the Relationship Between Heredity and Environment
• 3 Prenatal Development
• Motivations for Parenthood
• Prenatal Development
• Prenatal Environmental Influences
• Preparing for Parenthood
• 4 Birth and the Newborn Baby
• The Stages of Childbirth
• Approaches to Childbirth
• Medical Interventions
• Birth Complications
• Precious Moments After Birth
• The Newborn Baby's Capacities
• The Transition to Parenthood
• III Infancy and Toddlerhood: The First Two Years
• 5 Physical Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
• Body Growth
• Brain Development
• Influences on Early Physical Growth
• Learning Capacities
• Motor Development
• Perceptual Development
• 6 Cognitive Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
• Piaget's Cognitive-Developmental Theory
• Information Processing
• The Social Context of Early Cognitive Development
• Individual Differences in Early Mental Development
• Language Development
• 7 Emotional and Social Development in Infancy and Toddlerhood
• Erikson's Theory of Infant and Toddler Personality
• Emotional Development
• Development of Temperament
• Development of Attachment
• Self-Understanding
• IV Early Childhood: Two to Six Years
• 8 Physical Development in Early Childhood
• Body Growth
• Brain Development
• Factors Affecting Physical Growth and Health
• Motor Development
• 9 Cognitive Development in Early Childhood
• Piaget's Theory: The Preoperational Stage
• Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory
• Information Processing
• Individual Differences in Mental Development
• Language Development
• 10 Emotional and Social Development in Early Childhood
• Erikson's Theory: Initiative vs
• Guilt
• Self-Understanding
• Emotional Development
• Peer Relations
• Foundations of Morality
• Gender Typing
• Child Rearing and Emotional and Social Development
• V Middle Childhood: Six to Eleven Years
• 11 Physical Development in Middle Childhood
• Body Growth
• Common Health Problems
• Health Education
• Motor Development and Play
• 12 Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood
• Piaget's Theory: The Concrete Operational Stage
• Information Processing
• Individual Differences in Mental Development
• Language Development
• Children's Learning in School
• 13 Emotional and Social Development in Middle Childhood
• Erikson's Theory
• Self-Understanding
• Emotional Development
• Understanding Others: Perspective Taking
• Moral Development
• Peer Relations
• Gender Typing
• Family Influences
• Some Common Problems of Development