Developmental Science: An advanced text. 6thth edition. Marc H. Bornstein & Michael E. Lamb. 2011. New York: Psychology Press. ISBN: 978-1-84872-871-4, 746 pages.

The heft of the tome had me singing softly, "the road is long, with many a winding trail that leads me to where, who knows where…" (the Hollies)…. This song, at least to a certain generation, may capture the book which, while it is heavy, may lead one down the developmental science path, at least one that covers the first couple decades of life, to important destinations. At the end of the road one will have gained some knowledge into the lay of the land within child and adolescent development. While some chapters make mention of development occurring later in life (cf. the discussion of wisdom or perceptual development) the later eight decades are rarely considered. Thus, if one is using this for a lifespan developmental science course it would needed to be supplemented.

With any volume this big, when using it for an advanced undergraduate or graduate seminar, one will elicit the full range of emotions exhibited by infants: "interest, surprise, joy and distress." A solidary reader, especially a novice in the field, may miss the needed guidance and conversations to link chapters and note discrepancies within and between chapters. However, this crosswalk within and across chapters would make excellent material for higher level courses supported by an advance mentor.

Bornstein and Lamb's edited volume is divided into three broad main areas. The first area "The foundations of developmental science" is comprised of rather isolated blocks to build upon. One strength is the inclusion of a chapter on design, measurement, and analysis (often missing in other comparable advanced texts) and paramount to developmental sciences. The chapter on theories introduces key players and could be revisited across the subsequent chapters. The divergent views held within these foundational broad areas are worth noting in a classroom setting and are embedded in the playfully juxtaposed methods and culture chapters. Divergent views across chapters on the theories and works of Piaget, Bowlby, or Bronfenbrenner for example, could be elaborated by students or instructors using this book. The implicit tension between chapters might also provide rich fodder for discussion and certainly reflect this field. Each rich, dense, chapter would easily merit a week or two in a graduate seminar. Luckily every chapter in the entire book provides highlighted key primary sources to read as well as much more esoteric faire. Once a reader makes it through these well written, packed foundational chapters, the subsequent sections seem somewhat more manageable in scope.

The second section covers the areas of developmental neuroscience, and then perceptual, cognitive, physical and motor, and language development with shorter chapters than the first third. As before, interested readers may have to go to primary sources to gain more background information. The chapter on developmental neuroscience revisits the area of perception, cognition and behavior including some basic early neuroanatomical changes and an introduction to how data is obtained on these processes in young organisms (e.g. fMRI, ERP, & NIRS). This physiological work is augmented by a chapter on physical and motor development and both work well together. Again guidance in thinking across chapters will aid the novice readers in noticing the linkages. For example cultural differences in motor and perceptual abilities can be linked back to the theory and culture chapters. Work from the book's last chapter on legal issues can be linked to brain development since evidence from this domain informed court decisions.

Practical utility from the motor and physical development chapter for future parenting instructors and care providers can be seen with examples like the surprising lack of knowledge that transfers from one motoric mode (crawling) to another (creeping). The perception chapter adds important

information on the philosophical underpinnings of this area and the field. The philosophical questions are linked to the theories and often taught there but can work here too. The philosophical backstory could also be expanded across chapters. The chapter on language development provides a brief foray through the history and state of knowledge in this area drawing from diverse luminaries as Augustine and Humpty Dumpty (from Lewis Carroll) as well as external links to illustrate children's verbal language learning. Running through this volume is a tenacity and cleverness of researchers watching, thinking, and testing infants, children, and adolescents as well as clothing them in experimental apparatus including Velcro mittens and Teflon slippers. New scholars should appreciate the creativity underlying most of the studies and use them for a source of ideas.

The book's final section on "personality and social contexts" includes more reference to prior chapters (although not as systematically as the Cloud Atlas, (Mitchell, 2004)) and integrates material. The chapter on the "individual child: temperament, emotion, self, and personality" unpacks how children become different from each other. The questions and framing of questions in personality can be applied to most of the other chapters. In the chapter on parent-child relationships fathers are given more due than is typical but meaningful treatment of so-called nontraditional family types is not. Suggestions that development might continue beyond high school include a plethora of studies with associations and predictions from early child parent relationships. These studies might provide an interesting addendum to parenting classes and segue to adult development. Practical information can be gleaned from discussions on interventions that improved attachment behavior by helping with increasing secure attachment (e.g. Bakermans-Kranenburg, IJzendoorn, & Juffer, 2003) but are not the focus.

Family structure differences are wisely tempered with the data-driven observation that effects of divorce are worse on children than father absence due to death. Many have called for a better understanding of why this type of single parenting is not as aversive to the families despite a sad loss and use as a comparison for single parenting effects. The authors' observation does not really guide the subsequent paragraphs on single parenting effects. Augmentation of the family processes might help clarify outcomes for children in these families. The question of who is the proper group to compare outcomes could also be examined in the chapter on legal issues in discussion of divorce and custody as many have noted. For example, two parent high conflict families may provide a better control of what role a single parent environment has on a child from a divorce. Family advocates will also want to be careful to unpack correlations with prior abuse and the laundry list of bad outcomes and the subsequent statement that not all children experience these. Teaching points here could include the politics of who one uses as a comparison as well as the meaning of clinical samples, non-random sampling, and selection over time.

The chapter on friendship provides a good overview of this area, stressing the importance of one friend in both the short and long term development of a child. The school chapter provides a model to expand upon with multiple level of school influence. One could expand this type of model to understand differences in multiple settings. This school chapter's elaboration of ecological models integrates well the chapters that preceded it. In the last chapter on the legal system there is a vital beginning conversation about basic and applied literature that is important not just to the law but most areas discussed previously. Practical applications in the legal arena include interview protocols for children. The chapter also brings up the inequitable witch-hunt style way that false confessions are elicited from youth in the "justice" system. Family life educators and youth advocates can take note of how little education may be getting to those who need it most on basics like Miranda Rights.

Even a big comprehensive volume such as this will be missing several important things. First as noted earlier, development and hopefully developmental sciences continue over the lifespan. Also, more about what works and more on interventions could be supplied (e.g. Early Head Start) or perhaps work on risk and resiliency. A feminist perspective is lacking. Because the chapters discuss mostly infants, children, and adolescents the lack of real power in their lives and those caring for them could be noted. While there are acknowledgements some differences due to culture, the intersections of culture with poverty, geography, privilege, gender, class, or family structure are infrequent (see Cole, 2009). Different family types (e.g. grandparents, same sexed, and stepparents) are rarely noted. The potential role of media in development of children and youth is also omitted. Finally, a framing of health over time, especially in understanding cumulative inequities is not well addressed. In summary, this book provides a good introduction to the field, an update for those no longer in school (but still mind you, developing), and a starting point for a novice to map the early part of the road called developmental science.

Reviewed by Elise Murowchick, Ph.D., CFLE, Seattle University.

References

Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Juffer, F. (2003). "Less is more: Meta-analyses of sensitivity and attachment interventions in early childhood." Psychological Bulletin, 129(2), 195-215. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.129.2.195

Cole, E. R. (2009). "Intersectionality and research in psychology." American Psychologists, 64(3), 170-180.

Mitchell, D. (2004). Cloud Atlas. New York: Random House.