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Title: What's Going on in There? : How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life by LISE ELIOT ISBN: 0-553-37825-2 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 03 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.84 (45 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: an excellent resource for parents, grandparents and teachers
Comment: Subtitled 'How the Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life' and written by a neuroscientist mother of three, this book benefits as much from its organization as the material it presents. Research, supplemented with anecdotes, is divided into chapters based on sense or function and then detailed chronologically within each section. Chapters include: The Basic Biology of Brain Development; How Birth Affects the Brain; The Importance of Touch; The Early World of Smell; Taste, Milk, and the Origins of Food Preference; Wiring Up the Visual Brain; How Hearing Evolves; Motor Milestones; Social-Emotional Growth; The Experience of Memory; Language and the Developing Brain; How Intelligence Grows in the Brain; Nature, Nurture, and Sex Differences in Intellectual Development; How to Raise a Smarter Child.
This is one of those books you should write in -- underline, highlight, take notes -- because if you are indeed interested in using this information to understand your child's progressive developmental changes, you will be referring to it often. The author presents a lot of research material in accessible language and style, but the book is dense and is not a day-to-day how-to guide. You will not read about colic or how to tell a cold from the flu, but you will learn why your four-month old prefers a little salt in her mashed potatoes or why most of us can't recall anything that happened before we were three-and-a-half years old. Because there is a lot of information, this is not one of the easiest books you will ever read, but it is eminently worthwhile. The author not only synopsizes a lot of research for us, but also defines the limits of research and/or those issues which are still under debate or not yet fully understood, and discusses the evolutionary implications of various developmental changes.
A Notes section details sources so you can follow up in areas in which you're particularly interested. (With 458 Notes, I'm not sure why one reviewer criticized the book for lack of documentation.) A thorough index. This book seems to benefit as much from good editing as exemplary authorship.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Best Parenting Book
Comment: This book is for the parent who wants to know all the "Whys." I have identical twins, so it is very interesting to me to see why their personalities might be different. Identical twins are used in many experiments, so I found this book especially interesting. My mother-in-law is also a pschologist and did many "experiements" with my husband (wish they had video cameras back then -- would have been neat to see). :) My husband and I have always been fascinated with child development since our children were born. This answered all our questions!
It is a very technical, detailed book, but it is not too far over an average parent's head to get something out of it. I did find myself skipping over some of the parts that got bogged down in details (I just want to get to the point sometimes), but I would get the main idea. My husband and I found this book while searching for a more scientific book on brain development. We were watching a series on TLC that showed different experiements done with children and when children acquire specific skills and why. We tried finding it again without success, so we searched for a book instead. You can find tons of books that tell you when your child should do what, but they don't tell why and what is really going on in their heads. This book will explain all that!! You will even learn things like why toddlers should drink whole milk until the age of 2! It is broken up into the different senses as well as being chronological, which I found really easy to follow.
This will definitely make you a better parent. As an educator myself, I find it fascinating just to have the knowledge, and I feel it is important for all parents to have this knowledge. You will learn how to stimulate your child at different ages so that his/her brain develops to its fullest. You and your child will be happier and more relaxed just having the information contained in this book.
The only regret I have is not having read it sooner! I had all the other parenting books, but I never felt fulfilled reading them. I didn't want a list of milestones, I wanted to know why they do milestones when they do. This is the only parenting book you need! I recommend reading it before your children are born, but it is never too late to read it! Mine were 2 when I got this book!
Rating: 5
Summary: Absolutely Excellent, A MUST Read
Comment: If you are pregnant or thinking about starting a family I definitely recommend that you buy What's Going on in There? by Lise Eliot. This book is very informative and should be eccential to your prenatal (and even post-natal) reading. Eliot ia a neurobiologist and a mother of three, so not only does she provide more than enough scientific information but she supplies plenty of personal anecdotes involing her children.
Unlike most books of this sort that divide the book into ages (0-3 months), Eliot divides her book into developmental stages from start(in uetero) to finish (postnatal) and head to toe. Therefore she will discuss a certain developmental task a chapter but in that chapter covers that development from emergence to completion, which in some cases spans several years. At first you might think that a book that is well over 500-pages on child development a bit hefty but in alll actuality it is quite an easy read. That being said I studied molecular/cell bio in college so because of my background education this book was a lot easier to read. Does one have to be and expert in biology in order to understand this book, I don't think so. Eliot presents her views and scientific evidence in a strait forward manner that anyone that has had high school biology should be able to understand.
The Chapters are as Follows:
(1) Nature vs Nurture? It's all in the Brain
(2) The Basic Biology of Brain Development
(3) Prenatal Influences on the Developing Brain
(4) How Birth Affects the Brain
(5) The Importance of Touch
(6) Why Babies Love to Be Bounced: The Precocious Sense of Balance and Motion
(7) The Early World of Smell
(8) Taste, Milk, and the Origins of Food Preference
(9) Wiring Up the Visual Brain
(10) How Hearing Evolves
(11) Motor Milestones
(12) Social-Emotional Growth
(13) The Emergence of Memory
(14) Language and the Developing Brain
(15) How Intelligence Grows in the Brain
(16) Nature, Nurture, and Sex Differences in Intellectual Development
(17) How to Raise a Smarter Child
Some of you might be tempted to skip the first 16 chapters and go for the last one, I don't recommend doing this. Although the last chapter suggests that she put all the secrets to making your child smarter, actually I think that the message from Eliot is not for smarter kids but smarter parents. It is our resposibility as parents to foster our children's development, through interacting/ bonding, communicating and play, ths child does a lot of learning by observing us, and it is from us that they learn how to handle the pressures of the world. Which comes to Eliot talking about the Nature vs Nurture debate. This book does not advocate one way or the other, but BOTH. We are in the age now where scientists are tracking down the human genome trying to figure out what is it about our DNA that makes us, well us. Basically, DNA is the foundation that makes us who we are, giving us the foundation to grow, but without environmental pressures (both good and bad) to either foster or hinder our development. For example; let's take height a "normal" child (one born without autosomal defects which can lead to Dwarfism) growing up in an environment where there is poor nutrition either due to famine or poverty has less of a chance of becoming tall than a similar child that has had the benefit of eating foods that are fortified and that are bountiful. However, with certain genetic disorders like Dwarfism not matter how much positive pressure(i.e. nutrition) there will be little effect.
Eliot does an excellent job of transitioning from one chapter to the next. Thus I recommend reading it cover to cover. I also recommend reading it more then once, it is very useful to use as a reference, albeit not the best reference book on babies nor is it the worst.
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Title: Baby Minds : Brain-Building Games Your Baby Will Love by LINDA PHD ACREDOLO, SUSAN PHD GOODWYN ISBN: 0553380303 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 05 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Baby Signs: How to Talk with Your Baby Before Your Baby Can Talk, New Edition by Linda Acredolo, Susan Goodwyn, Douglas Abrams ISBN: 0071387765 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 24 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5 by American Academy Of Pediatrics ISBN: 0553379623 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 June, 1998 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night by Elizabeth Pantley, William Sears ISBN: 0071381392 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 28 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Scientist in the Crib : What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind by Alison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Patricia K. Kuhl ISBN: 0688177883 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 26 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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