Nature and Nurture in Early Child Development

Daniel P. Keating is Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Research Professor at the Center for Human Growth and Development, and Faculty Associate in the Survey Research Center at the Institute for Social Research, all at the University of Michigan. He is also a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), and a member of CIFAR's Successful Societies Program. Keating has held positions at the University of Minnesota, the University of Maryland, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Education in Berlin, Germany, and the University of Toronto. He has occasionally appeared on television, including on the Phil Donohue Show, the Vision series on TV Ontario, and others. He has also been a guest on radio talk shows featured on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), focused mainly on his book (with Clyde Hertzman) Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations (1999). Currently, much of his work focuses on the just-launched National Children's Study, for which he serves as an investigator in a number of capacities.

• Introduction Daniel P. Keating; 1. Biological and experiential influences on psychological development Michael Rutter; 2. Neural development and lifelong plasticity Charles A. Nelson III; 3. Mother and child: preparing for a life Ronald G. Barr; 4. Early experience and stress regulation in human development Megan R. Gunnar and Michelle M. Loman; 5. Biology and context: symphonic causation and the distribution of childhood morbidities W. Thomas Boyce; 6. Understanding within-family variability in children's responses to environmental stress Jennifer Jenkins and Rossana Bisceglia; 7. Origins, development, and prevention of aggressive behavior Richard E. Tremblay; 8. Mental health intervention in infancy and early childhood Alicia F. Lieberman and Chandra Ghosh Ippen; 9. Bridging a population health perspective to early biodevelopment: an emerging approach Clyde Hertzman; 10. Society and early child development: developmental health disparities in the nature-and-nurture paradigm Daniel P. Keating.

“More so than any other book, Nature and Nurture in Early Child Development compellingly moves developmental science into a new scientific era, one where integrative theoretical models, innovative and rigorous methodologies, and impressive longitudinal data sets combine to elucidate the system of relations that weave biological, behavioral, and contextual variables into a mutually influential process shaping the course of individual development. Professor Keating and his colleagues have produced a landmark book that sets the scientific standard for how theory-predicated research about the system of biology-context relations may significantly advance understanding of the dynamics of early childhood and innovatively inform policies and programs aimed at promoting positive and healthy development in the early years of life.” – Richard M. Lerner, Tufts University