Lifespan Development presents the optimum balance between theory, research, and practical application on the topic of human development. Readers will appreciate the personal and accessible writing style of this book, yet recognize the theoretical clarity and rigor of research used in presenting the most current and relevant discussions for the study of development in the twenty-first century. For anyone interested in development through the lifespan. This book will be relevant to readers involved in the fields of psychology, education, human development, nursing, home economics, and family studies.
Learned about the physical, cognitive, social, and personality development within the life stages of infancy, early childhood, middle childhood, late childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood, late adulthood, and death.
Logically ordered; written in neutral, easy manner. It should make really good textbook. Not so much a time to time read. You'd probably want something less detailed, more concise. If you'd like an extreme version, here you are:
We don't know shit about human psychology.
Don't get me wrong - I do value psychology a lot. But the ways of scientific research is limited to in that field make it unbelievably inefficient (in terms of time) and horribly prone to error. But it's great to know how much you still don't know, right?
I read this entire textbook for one of the graduate level courses for Special Education. This book provides an extensive overview of typical development from Prenatal to Older Adulthood. In each section it discusses the Physical, Cognitive, and Social/Personality development of a typically developing individual.
Lifespan Development also provided valuable information in regards to atypical development and factors that cause chromosomal diseases and physical/social/cognitive disabilities. The book is organized in a linear format and appears easy to navigate.
The material and writing in this book, like any textbook, is dry and can be challenging to focus on. More than once, I found myself nodding off at a particular sentence or paragraph. the pages try to be diverse with text, pictures and tables, but to condense so much material (literally all the material from birth to death) into one book is asking for a snoozefest.
Grammar mistakes thoughout, and the format was hard to follow. It needed a better editor and a better structure. Also, there were inconsistencies in places. For example, the definition in the written text would be different than the definition in the side-bar. (Not just different words, but different meanings.)
I used this as a textbook for my human development class and I found it to be an easy ready. Very informative and it covered from the moment of conception to death. I enjoyed learning from it, and I enjoyed my class. I liked the mini quizzes at the end of each section to check for understanding. There is a lot of info on human development.
Am reading the 6th edition of this textbook for Developmental Psychology class. It is proof positive that the devil is alive and well and working in the college textbook publishing industry.
I didn't realize it was possible to make several hundred pages of plainly obvious statements, call it a textbook, and charge $60 a pop. Clearly I'm in the wrong business.