Children’s Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences, Seventh Edition by David Bjorklund remains the most comprehensive and current topical textbook available in cognitive development. The text presents up-to-date, thorough research studies and data throughout. Bjorklund expertly introduce readers to the concept of developmental function, which explains that healthy children can individually vary in their cognition as they develop. This concept is discussed throughout the text within the context of the typical progression of cognitive development through infancy and childhood. In addition, the text includes framework showing that, although some traits are established at birth, children’s cognitive development is also shaped by the physical and social environments that surround them throughout their formative years. The seventh edition has been updated to include current and extensive research, sociocultural coverage, evolutionary coverage of memory development, children’s development of prosocial cognition, moral development, and the concept of overimitation.
Table of Content
Chapter 1. Introduction to Cognitive Development
Chapter 2. Biological Bases of Cognitive Development
Chapter 3. Social Construction of Mind: Sociocultural Perspectives on Cognitive Development
Chapter 4. Infant Perception and Cognition
Chapter 5. Thinking in Symbols: Development of Representation
Chapter 6. Learning to Think on Their Own: Executive Function and Strategies
Chapter 7. Memory Development
Chapter 8. Problem Solving and Reasoning
Chapter 9. Language Development
Chapter 10. Social Cognition
Chapter 11. Schooling and Cognitive Development
Chapter 12. Approaches to the Study of Intelligence
Chapter 13. Origins, Modification, and Stability of Intellectual Differences
About the author
David F. Bjorklund is a Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University where he teaches courses in developmental and evolutionary psychology. He received a BA degree in Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1971), an MA degree in Psychology from the University of Dayton (1973), and a Ph.D. degree in Developmental Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1976). He received an Honorary Doctorate (Doctor philosophiae honoris causa) in 2015 from the University of Bern, Switzerland. He served as Associate Editor of Child Development (1997-2001) and is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (since 2007). He has published widely on the topics of cognitive development and evolutionary developmental psychology. His most recent books include How Children Invented Humanity: The Role of Development in Human Evolution (Oxford); Child Development in Evolutionary Perspective (Cambridge); Evolutionary Perspectives on Infancy (Springer, co-edited with Sybil Hart); and The Development of Children’s Memory: The Scientific Contributions of Peter A. Ornstein (Cambridge, co-edited with Lynne Baker-Ward and Jennifer Coffman). He lives in Jupiter, Florida with his wife Barbara and enjoys traveling, cooking, playing basketball, and kayaking.