Book Review: Developmental Issues: The Development of the Person

Developmental Issues The of the Person L Alan Sroufe, Byron Egeland, Elizabeth A Carlson, W Andrew Collins. New York (NY): Guilford Press; 2005. 384 p. US$40.00. Reviewer rating: Excellent The findings of the Minnesota Study of Risk and Adaptation From Birth to Adulthood, a longitudinal study that began in the mid 1970s and spans 3 decades, form the basis of this book. Longitudinal studies in child literature traditionally examine clinic populations or diagnostic groups or are epidemiologic. The Minnesota Study differs because the assessments began before the child's birth and the study's goal was to the general trends in development, as well as to describe the course of individual lives (p x) of children who were considered at higher risk of parenting difficulties than the general population. There were 2 inclusion criteria: that it was the last trimester of the mother's first pregnancy and that the mother qualified for US public assistance for prenatal and natal care for people living under the poverty line. The contents are arranged in 3 parts. The first part, Understanding Development, consists of 4 chapters. The opening chapter provides the rationale and outline of the study. In the second chapter, the authors explain their theoretical perspectives. The authors use the Bowlby-Ainsworth attachment theory as their conceptual model of development as well as their 3 guiding principles of unity, emerging complexity or self-organization, and the differentiation of development. The third chapter provides a detailed explanation of the authors' methodology, choice of timing, and instruments used for assessments. The fourth chapter details the follow-up strategy and provides excellent lists of salient developmental issues and changing issues in peer relations that guide the assessments. It ends with a note on ethical dilemmas and how they were dealt with while endeavouring to minimize confounding. The second part, Development and Adaptation, has 6 chapters. Each chapter is dedicated to one stage of development from infancy through toddler, preschool, middle childhood, adolescence, and finally adulthood. Adaptation in infancy provides findings from quality of caregiving, including maltreatment, infant-parent attachment, and contextual influences. These findings show that caregiving depends on several global, rather than specific, factors and is associated with parent and child strengths and vulnerabilities within the environmental context. Each stage of this book includes statistical support for these and other findings. Chapter 7, on preschoolers, presents results from 2 assessments: at age 3.6 years and again at age 4.6 to 5 years. They demonstrate the formation of a coherent personality; that is, a way of interacting socially and behaviourally that is consistent across situations. Chapter 8 reports on children's competence at a summer camp and at an elementary school. To assess social competence, a sample of 10-year-olds from the original 180 children was chosen to attend a camp. The findings revealed high correlations between attachment security and competence at camp. Regression analysis was conducted with controlling for many variables, including IQ. The results showed a highly significant correlation between quality of care and emotional health and peer competence. The Chapter on adolescence reports findings from assessments at ages 13 and 16 years, which, surprisingly, did not add to previous predictions and showed that early care predicts high school adjustment, even with controlling for IQ. The consequences of psychological, physical, and sexual maltreatment demonstrate not only their etiologic role in adolescent behavioural problems but also, remarkably, their insignificance for some of these children who were doing well. Chapter 10 examines adult competence at work, studies, and intimate relationships. These findings further strengthen the assertion that predictions of later outcomes were most powerful when early and later care were combined with measures of context and when both parental and peer relationships were taken into account. …

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