The Neurobehavioral and Social-Emotional Development of Infants and Children

Internationally recognized as one of the premier researchers on child development, Ed Tronick has held notable teaching positions and conducted vital research for nearly 30 years.

Over the course of his esteemed career, he has received funding for hundreds of key studies in the US and abroad on normal and abnormal infant and child development—including his Mutual Regulation Model and Still-Face Paradigm, which revolutionized our understanding of infants’ emotional capacities and coping—all of which led to critical contributions in the field. Much of his work serves as the benchmark for how mental health clinicians think about biopsychosocial states of consciousness, the process of meaning making, and how and why we engage with others in the world.

Now, for the first time, Tronick has gathered together his most influential writings in a single, essential volume. Organized into five parts—(I) Neurobehavior, (II) Culture, (III) Infant Social-Emotional Interaction, (IV) Perturbations: Natural and Experimental, and (V) Dyadic Expansion of Consciousness and Meaning Making—this book represents his major ideas and studies regarding infant-adult interactions, developmental processes, and mutual regulation, carefully addressing such questions as:

• What is a state of consciousness?
• What are the developing infant’s capacities for neurobehavioral self-organization?
• How are early infant-adult interactions organized?
• How can we understand the nature of normal versus abnormal development?
• How do self and mutual regulation relate to developmental processes?
• Is meaning making purely a function of the brain, or is it in our bodies as well?

As a bonus, the book includes a DVD-ROM, with video clips of Tronick’s Still-Face Paradigm, an invaluable teaching aid.