The psychology of early growth, including norms of infant behavior and a method of genetic analysis,

Abstract

The Yale studies of infancy which began a score of years ago were first published by The Macmillan Company under the somewhat extensive title, The Mental Growth of the Preschool Child. A Psychological Outline of Normal Development from Birth to the Sixth Year, Including a System of Developmental Diagnosis. This volume, which enjoyed several reprintings, is now out of print. The present volume represents a continuation and elaboration of the earlier studies and is based upon ten years of subsequent collaborative research in the Yale Clinic of Child Development. The present volume deals particularly with the biometric aspects of the normative investigation. These three publications are organically related to each other. It is hoped that the systematic and objective methods used will bring the study of infant development into closer alignment with biological and medical sciences. We believe that the growth processes which mold the body and the behavior of the human infant are in essence comparable with those which are being successfully analyzed by experimental embryology.