Tackling some of the most important ideas in child psychology and human development, Human Resilience presents key theories from Ann and Alan Clarke's pioneering work in this field. The Clarkes discuss major interacting influences on development, including genetic and environmental effects, chance events and the tendency for people to influence their environments in ways that reinforce their personal characteristics. In particular, they address the controversial issues surrounding the heritability of IQ and outline factors affecting the success of various intervention programs, including fostering and adoption. The emerging importance of resilience as a concept in child development and psychology will make this book of great significance to psychology academics and students. Anyone working with disadvantaged children and those with learning disabilities will be interested in Human Resilience's practical implications: how resilience can be improved both by personal characteristics such as self esteem, problem-solving ability or sociability, and by external support.
Personal Profile: Ann & Alan Clarke, Barbara Tizard. Acknowledgements. Preface. 1. Genesis. Part I: Constancy and Change in Human Development. 2. How constant is the IQ? 3. Cognitive and social changes in the feeble-minded: Three further studies. 4. Predicting human development: Problems, evidence, implications. 5. Developmental discontinuities: An approach to assessing their nature. 6. Constancy and change in the growth of human characteristics. 7. The adult outcome of early behavioural abnormalities. 8. Varied destinies: A study of unfulfilled predictions. Part II: Research Problems and Solutions. 9. Regression to the mean: A confused concept. 10. Sleeper effects in development: Fact or artifact? 11. Intervention and sleeper effects: A reply to Victoria Seitz. 12. Research problems...and solutions. Part III: Intelligence. 13. Polygenic and environmental interactions. 14. Parent-offspring resemblances in intelligence: Theories and evidence. 15. The Burt affair. 16. Task complexity and transfer in the development of cognitive structures. 17. Editorial: The later cognitive effects of early intervention. Part IV: Early Experience and the Life Path. 18. Learning and human development: The 42nd Maudsley Lecture. 19. How modifiable is the human life path? 20. Contrary evidence? Part V: Enilogue. 21. Human resilience and the course of human development. Subject index.
'an excellent treatment of methodological concepts such as 'the sleeper effect, the 'regression to the mean' and the use of correlations help to elucidate issues in the field that are commonly misunderstood or misapplied.' - The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health
