|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff & Patricia K. Kuhl, The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn (Morrow, 1999) Reissued in paperback by Perennial in 2000. Babies and young children have many more capabilities than psychologists and parents thought even 30 years ago, according to Gopnick, Meltzoff and Kuhl, three leading cognitive science researchers in the field of child development. In a very thorough book leading from a brief history of child development from Romanticism to Behaviorism, the authors present the wealth of knowledge that young children are now known to have. They present results of their own studies and others, as well as many of their own personal family stories in a conversational, easy-to-read style that gives the reader a clear idea of just how competent young children are. They open the book discussing just why they chose to write it. They clearly state this is not a book to tell parents the secrets of getting their children into Harvard, how to get them to sleep more quietly or eat more frequently. Parents care about nothing more than their children and want to know more about them; most books on children, they assert, are how-to parenting books and do not give information on children's minds. This book is their successful attempt to provide a clearer picture of how children's minds work and the amazing capabilities that even very young children have. Going with the title, they argue that children are a lot like scientists. Just like scientists, children think, draw conclusions, make predictions, look for explanations, and even perform their own experiments. Of course, they do so in much different ways than scientists but they are testing their worlds and searching for information like scientists do. What follows is a wealth of information that ranges from how babies can recognize and prefer familiar sounds and faces within a few days of birth to children learning object permanence through toddlerhood. Above all, Gopnick, Meltzoff and Kuhl, as leading researchers in the field, point out how far knowledge about children's brains has come in the last 25 years and obviously care very deeply about their own children and the well-being of children in general. There is no one correct way for children to learn, they argue, and parents care deeply about the well-being of their children. Therefore, shouldn't we know how their minds work? Alison Gopnick, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley and a leading cognitive scientist. Andrew Meltzoff, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of Washington and an internationally known child psychology researcher. Patricia Kuhl, Ph.D. is a professor at the University of Washington and the world's leading speech development authority. The Scientist in the Crib has received numerous rave reviews from the Chicago Tribune to the Washington Post. MORE: Excerpt from the Book Compendium Website of Info. about Early Childhood Development |
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||