Tiffany Field (2007). The amazing infant (2007). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Field is a leading researcher on infant development, whose most valuable contributions have been concerned with the role of touch in infants’ emotional and physical growth. This highly readable book presents fascinating basic information about infant cognitive, linguistic, social, and emotional development—and about research methods for studying infants—that is useful for new parents as well as for students.
Jean Piaget (1929). The child’s conception of the world. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Many of Piaget’s books are difficult to read, but this one, written early in his career, is an exception. In the introduction, he spells out his method of learning about children’s understanding through interviewing them. The book is about children’s thoughts on such issues as where the names of things come from, where rain comes from, and what it means to think. The book provides a historical foundation not just for Piaget’s subsequent work but for the whole subfield of psychology concerned with cognitive development.
Bjorklund, D. F. (2012). Children’s thinking: Cognitive development and individual differences (5th edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
This is basically an advanced textbook on cognitive development that describes in a succinct and accessible way what is known about the various cognitive processes involved in children’s thinking, including each of the topics discussed in this chapter.
Steven Pinker (1994). The language instinct. New York: Morrow.
Pinker is not only a leading expert on language but a gifted user of it. In delightfully clear and humorous prose, he elaborates on essentially all the ideas about language and its development that are touched on in this chapter, plus much more. Have you ever wondered why baseball announcers say the batter “flied out” the last time up, rather than “flew out”? Pinker answers this and dozens of other questions about language.
Philip Lieberman (2006). Toward an evolutionary biology of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lieberman brings together research on the nature of human language, the communicative capacities of other animals, the anatomical bases for human speech, the archeology of that anatomy, and the genetics of human language to present an authoritative, fascinating account of how our species acquired its most distinctive ability—language.
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Steven C. Hayes, Dermot Barnes-Holmes, & Bryan Roche (2001). Relational frame theory: A post-Skinnerian account of human language and cognition. New York: Plenum Publishers.
So much of the human experience is steeped in language and this book examines verbal behavior and cognition from the behaviorist’s perspective. Steven C. Hayes and colleagues pick up the study of verbal behavior where B. F. Skinner left off and take language research into new empirical and theoretical territory. This book steps through the processes of how our environment influences how and why we think the way we do. It accounts for both thoughts and emotion in a way that can be understood by both behavioral and cognitive psychologists.
Betty Hart & Todd R. Risley (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
In this account of their landmark, longitudinal study on development, Betty Hart and Todd Risley explore how children in typical American families experience language. They determine which factors matter for vocabulary and language acquisition and which factors have little or no influence. Any future parent, caregiver, and educator should read this book.