The works published by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget and his associates during the past forty years constitute the largest repository of knowledge about the cognitive development of children that is available anywhere, and Piaget's general theory of intellectual development rivals, in scope and comprehensiveness, Freud's theory of personality development Here is a self-contained general summary of Piaget's theory, written at a relatively nontechnical level. It is suitable for use in a variety of courses in psychology and education -- child psychology, child development, educational psychology, learning, psychological systems, general psychology, and others. It will also interest professionals and educated laymen as a timely exposition of ideas that are attracting the attention of increasing numbers of American psychologists. In order to convey the complexities of the theory to readers who have had no previous contact with it, the author uses a number of unusual pedagogical devices. He first outlines the theory in an introduction that students can reread with increasing comprehension as they study the text. The main part of the book is an elucidation of the Piagetian periods of intellectual development, with enough illustrations of Piaget's research activities to give the theory meaning. The author frequently reproduces passages from Piaget's clinical observations with Piaget's interpretations deleted, so that the reader can assess his own understanding and better appreciate Piaget's style of inquiry. In an epilogue, the author discusses the educational implications of Piaget's work.

A look at the origins of cognitive abilities in primate species. Since Darwin’s time, comparative psychologists have searched for a good way to compare cognition in humans and nonhuman primates. In Origins of Intelligence, Sue Parker and Michael McKinney offer such a framework and make a strong case for using human development theory (both Piagetian and neo-Piagetian) to study the evolution of intelligence across primate species. Their approach is comprehensive, covering a broad range of social, symbolic, physical, and logical domains, which fall under the all-encompassing and much-debated term intelligence. A widely held theory among developmental psychologists and social and biological anthropologists is that cognitive evolution in humans has occurred through juvenilization—the gradual accentuation and lengthening of childhood in the evolutionary process. In this work, however, Parker and McKinney argue instead that new stages were added at the end of cognitive development in our hominid ancestors, coining the term adultification by terminal extension to explain this process. Drawing evidence from scores of studies on monkeys, great apes, and human children, this book provides unique insights into ontogenetic constraints that have interacted with selective forces to shape the evolution of cognitive development in our lineage. “The authors’ elegant theory and comprehensive empirical synthesis of how the development of human intelligence and brain evolved opens up cascading heuristic avenues for creatively answering one of the great questions in the human history of ideas.” —Jonas Langer, Human Development “A handy source of information on comparative cognitive abilities related to life history and brain variables.” —James Anderson, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

Since the first edition of this volume was published in 1976, interest in the problem of intelligence in general and infant intelligence in particu lar has continued to grow. The response to the first edition was hearten ing: many readers found it a source of information for the diverse areas of study in infant intelligence. Because of the success of that volume, we have decided to issue a second edition. This edition is in many ways both similar to and different from the first. Its similarity lies in the fact that many of the themes and many of the contributors remain the same. Its difference can be found in the updating of old chapters and the addition of several new ones. Taken together, the chapters present a rounded picture of the cen tral issues in infant intelligence. Because the aim was to present a picture of the issues, no attempt, other than the selection of authors and themes, can be made to integrate these chapters into a single coherent whole. In large part, this reflects the diversity of study found in the area of early intellectual behavior. Rather than having a comprehensive theo ry of infant intelligence, the field abounds with a series of critical ques tions. To unite these chapters into some coherence, it will be necessary to articulate what these issues might be. Five major themes run through out the field of infant intelligence and thus through this volume.