Child development refers to the biological and psychological changes that occur in human beings between birth and the end of adolescence, as the individual progresses from dependency to increasing autonomy. Because these developmental changes may be strongly influenced by genetic factors and events during prenatal life, genetics and prenatal development are usually included as part of the study of child development. The optimal development of children is considered vital to society and so it is important to understand the social, cognitive, emotional, and educational development of children. Consequently, child poverty rates have remained high since the middle of the 1970s. While several trends, including declines in the number of children per family and increases in parental years of schooling work to reduce child poverty rates, several other factors, including slow economic growth, widening economic inequality, and increases in the proportion of children living in mother-only families have had the opposite effect, pushing more children into poverty. Poor children suffer a disproportionate share of deprivation and hardship, among other bad outcomes. Not only do poor children have access to fewer material goods than rich or middle-class children, but they are also more likely to experience poor health and to die during childhood. This new book gathers the latest research from around the globe in these fields of study and focuses on such topics as social development of children with visual impairment, child poverty in rich countries, parenting styles in relation to poverty and the relation between poverty and the psychological disturbances of war-traumatized adolescents.
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