Development Across the Life Span by Robert S. Feldman

From the Publisher

For classes in lifespan development.

Development Across the Lifespan offers students a chronological overview of physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development–from conception through death. It presents up-to-date coverage of theory and research, with an emphasis on the application of these concepts by students in their personal–and future professional–lives. The text taps into students’ inherent interest in the subject of human development, encouraging them to draw connections between the material and their own experiences.

Booknews

This update of the 2000 edition incorporates new material on a diversity of topics including brain development, cloning, the human genome, psychoneuroimmunology, virginity pledges, and euthanasia. In his definition of lifespan development, Feldman (psychology, U. of Massachusetts-Amherst) focuses on patterns of growth and stability from conception to late adulthood and adjusting to the death of a loved one. Chapters include color photos, critical thinking questions, and other learning aids. A companion website and other ancillaries are available. First published in 1997. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Booknews

This text provides a broad overview of the field of human development, introducing major theorists, research, and applications, while connecting development to the students' own lives. Feldman (U. of Massachusetts, Amherst) also illustrates the commonalties and differences of various cultures; incorporates interviews with professionals in various fields who use the findings of development; and discusses ways that individuals can use development information in their own lives. The enclosed CD-ROM features author tip videos, theorist biographies, quizzes, and links to the Internet, including the text's companion website. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

Unlike any other area of study, lifespan development speaks to us in a very personal sense. It encompasses the range of human existence from its beginnings at conception to inevitable ending at death. It is a discipline that deals with ideas and concepts and theories, but one that above all has at its heart people—our fathers and mothers, our friends d acquaintances, our very selves.

Development Across the Life Span seeks to capture the discipline in a way that k sparks and nurtures and shapes readers' interest. It is meant to excite students about the field, to draw them into its way of looking at the world, and to build their understanding of developmental issues. By exposing readers to both the current content and the promise inherent in lifespan development, the text is designed to keep interest in the discipline alive long after students' formal study of the field has ended.

Overview of the Third Edition

Development Across the Life Span, third edition—like its predecessors—provides a broad overview of the field of human development. It covers the entire range of the human life, from the moment of conception through death. The text furnishes a broad, comprehensive introduction to the field, covering basic theories and research findings, as well as highlighting current applications outside the laboratory. It covers the life span chronologically, encompassing the prenatal period, infancy and toddlerhood, the preschool years, middle childhood, adolescence,early and middle adulthood, and late adulthood. Within these periods, it focuses on physical, cognitive, and social and personality development.

The book seeks to accomplish the following four major goals:

• First and foremost, the book is designed to provide a broad, balanced overview of the field of lifespan development. It introduces readers to the theories, research, and applications that constitute the discipline, examining both the traditional areas of the field as well as more recent innovations. It pays particular attention to the applications developed by lifespan development specialists, demonstrating how lifespan developmentalists use theory, research, and applications to help solve significant social problems.
• The second goal of the text is to explicitly tie development to students' lives. Findings from the study of lifespan development have a significant degree of relevance to students, and this text illustrates how these findings can be applied in a meaningful, practical sense. Applications are presented in a contemporaneous framework, including current news items, timely world events, and contemporary uses of lifespan development that draw readers into the field. Numerous descriptive scenarios and vignettes reflect everyday situations in people's lives, explaining how they relate to the field.
• The third goal is to highlight both the commonalities and diversity of today's multicultural society. Consequently, the book incorporates material relevant to diversity in all its forms—racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and cultural diversity—throughout every chapter. In addition, every chapter has at least one "Developmental Diversity" section. These features explicitly consider how cultural fact(( relevant to development both unite and diversify our contemporary, global society.
• Finally, the fourth goal is one that is implicit in the other three: making the field lifespan development engaging, accessible, and interesting to students. Lifespan development is a joy both to study and teach, because so much of it has direct, immediate meaning to our lives. Because all of us are involved in our own developmental pant we are tied in very personal ways to the content areas covered by the book. Development Across the Life Span, then, is meant to engage and nurture this interest, planting a seed that will develop and flourish throughout readers' lifetimes!

In accomplishing these goals, the book strives to be user-friendly. Written in a direct, conversational voice, it replicates as much as possible a dialogue between author and student. The text is meant to be understood and mastered on its own by students of every level of interest and motivation. To that end, it includes a variety of pedagogical features that promote mastery of the material and encourage critical thinking.

In short, the book blends and integrates theory, research, and applications, focusing on the breadth of human development. Furthermore, rather than attempting to provide detailed historical record of the field, it focuses on the here-and-now, drawing on the past where appropriate, but with a view toward delineating the field as it now stands and the directions toward which it is evolving. Similarly, while providing descriptions of classic studies, the emphasis is more on current research findings and trends.

Development Across the Life Span is meant to be a book that readers will want to keep in their own personal libraries, one that they will take off the shelf when considering problems related to that most intriguing of questions: How do people come to be the war they are?

What's New in the Third Edition

The third edition of Development Across the Life Span has been extensively revised in response to the comments of dozens of reviewers. Among the major changes are the following:

Additions of New and Updated Material

The revision incorporates a significant amount of new and updated information. For instance, advances in such areas as brain development, mapping the human genome, cognitive development, and cultural approaches to development receive expanded and news coverage. Overall, hundreds of new citations have been added, with most of those from articles and books published in the last three years.

Several areas received special attention in this revision, particularly in terms of coverage of middle and late adulthood. In addition, new material on genetics and brain development was added, fueled by the rapid changes in our understanding of these areas.

New topics were added to every chapter. The following sample of new and revised topics featured in this edition provides a good indication of the currency of the revision:

• human genome, number of human genes, nonorganic failure to thrive, affordances, brain development, corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), virginity pledges, benevolent sexism, referential and expressive language styles, interactional synchrony, epigenetic theory, use of antidepressants in children, fast mapping, emotion regulation, early puberty onset, emotional intelligence, psychoneuroimmunology, expertise, regret, estrogen loss, age stratification, passive and active euthanasia

Revisions to Foster Student Critical Thinking and Mastery of the Material

One thread that ran through the reviews of the previous edition was instructors' concerns regarding their students' thorough mastery of the material, permitting them to think critically about the material. In order to foster student mastery, a number of subtle changes were made to this edition to reinforce the existing features:

• Critical thinking questions added to captions. Many critical thinking questions were added to photo and figure captions, helping students to think more deeply about the material and to help students make connections between text concepts and the photo illustrations.
• End-of-part Bridges. Each major part of the book ends with a "Bridges" section. "Bridges" help students understand the relationship between the developmental achievements of the previous period and the upcoming one.

Ancillaries

Development Across the Life Span, Third Edition is accompanied by a superb set of teaching and learning materials.

For the Instructor:

NEW Prentice Hall's Observations in Child Development, Volume I by David Daniel. FREE when packaged with the text, this CD-ROM brings to life more than 30 key concepts discussed in the narrative of the text. Students get to view each video twice: once with an introduction to the concept being illustrated and again with commentary describing what is taking place at crucial points in the video. Students are then quizzed to test their understanding of what they just watched. Whether your course has an observation component or not, this CD-ROM provides your students the opportunity to see children in action.

Instructor's Resource Manual. Written by Susan Horton, Mesa Community College, this Instructor's Resource Manual contains a wealth of material for new and experienced instructors alike. Each chapter includes Objectives, Key Terms and Concepts, a Chapter Outline, Lecture Suggestions, Demonstrations and Classroom Activities, Group Activities, Critical Thinking Exercises, Assignment Ideas, Journal Exercises, Suggested Films and Videos, and Classroom Handouts.

NEW Instructor's Resource CD-ROM. This valuable, time-saving supplement brings together all of the Third Edition's instructor's resources in one convenient place. The CD-ROM offers presentation resources, including video clips from Prentice Hall's Observations in Child Development CD-ROM, chapter specific PowerPoint presentations, electronic versions of the overhead transparencies and text graphics. It also includes the electronic files for the Instructor's Resource Manual and the Test Item File.

Prentice Hall's Color Transparencies for Developmental Psychology. Designed in a large-type format for lecture settings, these full color overhead transparencies add visual appeal to your lectures by augmenting the visuals in the text with a variety of new illustrations.

Test Item File. Written by Carolyn Meyer, Lake-Sumter Community College, this test bank contains over 3000 multiple choice, true/false, short answer, and essay questions that test for factual, applied, and conceptual knowledge.

Prentice Hall Test Manager. One of the best-selling test-generating software programs on the market, Test Manager is available in Windows and Macintosh formats. Both fore mats contain a Grade Book, Online Network Testing, and many tools to help you edit and create tests. The program comes with full Technical Support and telephone "Request a Test" service.

NEW PsychologyCentral Website. Password protected for instructor's use only, this site allows you instant online access to Prentice Hall Psychology supplements. You'll find a multitude of resources for teaching developmental psychology—and many other psychology courses, too. From this site, you can download the following key supplements for Development Across the Life Span, Third Edition: Instructor's Resource Manual, Overhead Transparencies, Chapter Art and Chapter Specific PowerPoint presentations. Contact your Prentice Hall representative for the User ID and Password to access this site.

Films for the Humanities and Sciences. A wealth of full-length videos from the extensive library of Films for the Humanities and Sciences, on a variety of topics in developmental psychology, are available to qualified adopters. Contact your Prentice Hall representative: for a list of videos.

ABC News/Prentice Hall Video Library. Consisting of brief segments from award-winning news programs such as Good Morning America, Nightline, 20/20 and World News Tonight, these videos discuss current issues and are a great way to launch your lectures.

• NEW Issues in Child and Adolescent Development, 2002
• Human Development, Series IV 1999

Online Course Management. For professors interested in using the Internet and online course management in their courses, Prentice Hall offers fully customizable online courses in BlackBoard and Pearson's Course Compass powered by B1ackBoard. Contact your Prentice Hall Representative or visit for more information.

For the Student:

NEW Prentice Hall's Observations in Child Development, Volume I by David Daniel. FREE when packaged with the text, this CD-ROM brings to life more than 30 key concepts discussed in the narrative of the text. Students get to view each video twice: once with an introduction to the concept being illustrated and again with commentary describing what is taking place at crucial points in the video. Students are then quizzed to test their understanding of what they just watched. Whether your course has an observation component or not, this CD-ROM provides your students the opportunity to see children in action.

Study Guide. Written by Carolyn Meyer, Lake-Sumter Community College, this study guide is designed to help students get the most out of the textbook. Each chapter of the Study Guide includes Learning Objectives, Key Names and Terms, a Pre-Test and PostTest, Programmed Review, Critical Thinking Questions and Answers.

Companion Website This free online Study Guide allows students to review each chapter's material, take practice tests, research topics for course projects and more.

NEW Prentice Hall Guide to Evaluating Online Resources: Psychology, 2003. This guide provides students with a hands-on introduction to the Internet, features numerous websites related to Psychology and gives students guidelines on how to evaluate online resources. Now with FREE access to ContentSelect, a customized research database for students of psychology. Created by Prentice Hall and EBSCO, the world leader in online journal subscription management, this site provides students access to the text of many peer-reviewed publications and popular periodicals in Psychology.