This volume presents up-to-date knowledge on motor development, development of perceptual systems and cognitive development, and development of emotions and communication in relation to the development of the central nervous system. It covers the age range from prenatal stages of development to the onset of adolescence. Research and insights with respect to the above-mentioned domains are reviewed and future research directions and perspectives are discussed. The book consists of five sections, each edited by separate editors, and each containing a series of eight to 12 chapters written by experts. The first section introduces brain and behavioural research in human development from four different points of view. After a discussion of some basic issues in the study of brain-behaviour development, conceptual problems involved in studying behavioural development in relation to early environment, and neuropsychological problems inherent in research into early development and the role of developmental genetics are discussed. The section on structural development contains a short introductory overview of recent trends in research and gaps in our knowledge.
The section on motor development contains contributions from investigators of fetal and postnatal motor development in the human as well as contributions on research in experimental animals which have contributed significantly to our knowledge of the development of motor behaviour in the human. An important issue is the possibilities and limitations of extrapolating animal data to human development. Next to "classical" approaches to the study of motor development, contributions using the dynamical systems approach are also included. The section on perceptual and cognitive development discusses the development of cognitive functions in relation to perceptual systems and to the development of the brain. Issues such as the development of the temporal organisation of behaviour, perception and cognition, memory functions and more complex thought processes are covered in this section. The section on the development of communication and emotional development contains contributions to this growing field of interest. Connections between emotional and cogniti development as well as the neural basis of emotional development are core topics.
Ethological and psychological approaches to both emotional and communicative development are discussed. The book is aimed at an audience ranging from (developmental) neurologists, movement scientists, (developmental) neurophysiologists and neuroanatomists and molecular biologists to ethologists, biologists and psychologists interested in the development of perceptual, cognitive and emotional functions.