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the beginnings

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The science of human development includes many beginnings. Each of the first four chapters of this text forms one corner of a solid foundation for our study.

Chapter 1 introduces definitions and dimensions, explaining research strategies and methods that help us understand how people develop. The need for science, the power of culture, and the necessity of an ecological approach are all explained.

Without ideas, our study would be only a jumble of observations. Chapter 2 provides organizing guideposts: Five major theories, each leading to many other theories and hypotheses, are described.

Chapter 3 explains heredity. Genes never act alone, yet no development—whether in body or brain, at any time, in anyone—is unaffected by DNA.

Chapter 4 details the prenatal growth of each developing person from a single cell to a breathing, grasping, crying newborn. Many circumstances—from the mother’s diet to the father’s care to the culture’s values—affect development every day of embryonic and fetal growth.

As you see, the science and the wonder of human life begin long before the first breath. Understanding the beginnings described in each of these chapters prepares us to understand each developing child, and each of us.