About the Book
'A fascinating and easily digested review - a fitting tribute to the breadth and clarity of the research and clinical interests pursued and stimulated by Ann and Alan Clarke.'
- Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
'All researchers and practitioners in the area of mental handicap should find something of interest and relevance in this book. Overall the chapters are well written and bear witness to the Clarkes' significant contribution to our understanding of vulnerability.'
- Mental Handicap Research
Now available in paperback, this volume explores the human capacity for resilience despite the experience of adversity in early life. The book is a celebration of the significant contribution Ann and Alan Clarke have made to the field. Through their empirical and conceptual work they have advanced our understanding of how people overcome the influence of a hostile early environment.
The contributors focus on the factors which enable people to recover from early trauma and stress, and demonstrate how human development is an ongoing process throughout the life course. They draw on theory and practice from fields as diverse as the origins of behaviour disorders, recovery from brain injury, curricular development for the learning disabled, and creative ability in older people. This positive volume will inform the practice of professionals working with children who have experience of adversity. It contributes to the advance of the nature-nurture debate, showing how a supportive environment offsets the effects of early adverse experience.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Ann and Alan Clarke; an appreciation, Barbara Tizard. PART I. New Perspectives on Nature and Nurture. 1. Nature, nurture and psychopathology: A new look at an old topic, Michael Rutter, Honorary Director, Medical Research Council Child Psychiatry Unit. 2. Early experience and the parent-child relationship: genetic and environmental interactions as developmental determinants, H. Rudolf Schaffer, Professor of Psychology, University of Strathclyde. PART II. Longitudinal Studies of Vulnerability and Resilience. 3. Assets and deficits in the behaviour of people with Down's Syndrome - a longitudinal study, Janet Carr, PhD, C Psychol, FBPsS, Regional Tutor in the Psychology of Mental and Multiple Handicap, St George's Hospital Medical School. 4. Interactions between offspring and parents in development, Stella Chess, Professor of Child Psychiatry, and Alexander Thomas, Professor of Psychiatry, New York University Medical Centre. 5. Escaping from a bad start, Doria Pilling, Research Fellow, Rehabilitation Resource Centre, City University. 6. Vulnerability and resilience in adults who were classified as mildly mentally retarded in childhood, Stephen Richardson Professor Emeritus and Helen Koller, Principal Associate, Albert Einstein College, New York. PART III. Vulnerability, resilience, and rehabilitation from biological and psycho-social stress. 7. Reducing mental and related handicaps: a biomedical perspective, J. M. Berg, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. 8. Rehabilitation of the dyspraxic dysphasic adult, Robert Fawcus, Professor of Clinical Communication Studies and Margaret Fawcus, Department of Clinical Communication Studies, City University. 9. Vulnerability and resilience to early cerebral injury, Edgar Miller, Department of Health. 10. Educating children with severe learning difficulties: challenging vulnerability, Peter Mittler, Director, School of Education, University of Manchester. 11. Resilience and vulnerability in child survivors of disasters, William Yule, Professor of Applied Child Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. PART IV. Responses to Psychosocial Stress. 12. A useful old age, Don C Charles, Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, Iowa State University. 13. Troubled and troublesome: perspectives on adolescent hurt, Masud Hoghugi, Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Hull, Director of the Aycliffe Centre for Children. 14. Implications of the Warsaw Study for Social and Educational planning, Ignacy Wald, Institute of Psychiatry and Neurology, Warsaw, and Anna Firkowska-Mankiewicz, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw. Index.
About the Author :
Barbara Tizard is Professor of Education at the Institute of Education, where she was formerly Director of the Thomas Coram Research Unit. Dr Ved Varma is a former educational psychologist and has published widely in the field of child psychology.
