This definitive volume is the result of collaboration by top scholars in the field of children's cognition. It provides state-of-the-art summaries of current research by international specialists in different areas of cognitive development, written to be of interest to scholars as well as upper level students. The Handbook spans aspects of cognitive development from infancy to the onset of adolescence and offers an overview of all the major areas of importance in the field. As well as coverage of basic research topics such as categorization, memory, reasoning and language, the volume includes chapters on symbolic reasoning, pretend play, spatial development, abnormal cognitive development and current theoretical perspectives.

Table of Contents

Part I: Infancy: The Origins of Cognitive Development: 1. Imitation as a Mechanism of Social Cognition:Origins of Empathy, Theory of Mind and the Representation of Action: Andrew Meltzoff (University of Washington, Seattle) 2. The Development of Understanding Self and Agency: Gyorgy Gergely (Hungarian Academy of Psychology) 3. The Acquisition of Physical Knowledge in Infancy: A Summary in Eight Lessons: Renee Baillargeon (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) 4. Early Categorisation: A New Synthesis: Paul C. Quinn (University of Delaware) 5. Early Word Learning and Conceptual Development: Everything Had a Name, and Each Name Gave Birth to a New Thought: Sandra R. Waxman (Northwestern University) 6. Early Memory Development: Patricia J. Bauer (University of Minnesota) Part II: Cognitive Development in Early Childhood: 7. Development of the Animate-Inanimate Distinction: Susan A. Gelman (University of Michigan) and John E. Opfer (Carnegie Mellon University) 8. Understanding the Psychological World: Developing a Theory of Mind: Henry M. Wellman (University of Michigan) 9. Pretend Play and Cognitive Development: Angeline Lillard (University of Virginia) 10. Early Development of the Understanding and Use of Symbolic Artifacts: Judy S. Deloache (University of Virginia) Part III: Topics in Cognitive Development in Childhood: 11. Memory Development in Childhood: Wolfgang Schneider (University of Wurzburg) 12. The Development of Causal Reasoning: Barbara Koslowski (Cornell University) and Amy Masnick (Carnegie Mellon University) 13. Inductive and Deductive Reasoning: Usha Goswami (University of Cambridge) 14. The Development of Moral Reasoning: Larry P. Nucci (University of Illinois at Chicago) 15. Spatial Development in Childhood: Where are we now? Lynn S. Liben (Penn State University) 16. Children's Intuitive Physics: Friedrich Wilkening (Universitat Zurich) and Susanne Huber (Friedrich-Miescher-Laboratory, Max-Planck-Society) 17. What is Scientific Thinking, and How Does it Develop? Deanna Kuhn (Columbia University) 18. Reading Development and Dyslexia: Margaret J. Snowling (University of York) 19. Children's Understanding of Mathematics: Peter Bryant (University of Oxford) and Terezhina Nunes (Oxford Brookes University) Part IV: Topics in Atypical Cognitive Development: 20. Executive Function in Typical and Atypical Development: Philip David Zelazo and Ulrich Muller (both University of Toronto) 21. Language and Cognition: Evidence from Disordered Language: Barbara Dodd and Sharon Crosbie (both University of Newcastle upon Tyne) 22. The Exact Mind: Empathising and Systemising in Autistic Spectrum Conditions: Simon Baron-Cohen, Sally Wheelwright, John Lawson, Rick Griffin, and Jacqueline Hill (all University of Cambridge) Part V: Models of Cognitive Development: 23. Piaget's Model: Leslie Smith (University of Lancaster) 24. Vygotsky's Model of Cognitive Development: Shawn M. Rowe and James V. Wertsch (both Washington University in St. Louis) 25. Information Processing Models of Cognitive Development: Graeme S. Halford (University of Queensland) 26. Modelling Typical and Atypical Cognitive Development: Computational Constraints on Mechanisms of Change: Michael S.C. Thomas and Annette Karmiloff-Smith (both Institute of Child Health, University College London) 27. Individual differences in Cognitive Development: Robert J. Sternberg (Yale University)

Author Biography

Usha Goswami has been Professor of Cognitive Developmental Psychology at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, since 1997. Prior to that she was a lecturer in Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of St John's College Cambridge.