A Therapist's Guide to Child Development: The Extraordinarily Normal Years

A Therapist's Guide to Child Development gives therapists and counselors the basics they need to understand their clients in the context of development and to explain development to parents. The chapters take the reader through the various physical, social, and identity developments occurring at each age, explaining how each stage of development is closely linked to mental health and how that is revealed in therapy. This ideal guide for students, as well as early and experienced professionals, will also give readers the tools to communicate successfully with the child’s guardians or teachers, including easy-to-read handouts that detail what kind of behaviors are not cause for concern and which behaviors mean it’s time to seek help. As an aid to practitioners, this book matches developmental ages with appropriate, evidence-based mental health interventions.

Table of Contents:
I. Introduction 1. Overview of Child Devolpment Ray 2. Developmentally Appropriate Interventions Ray II. Early Childhood 3. Extraordinary Years: Birth to Two Ener 4. The Extraordinary Three-Year-Old Lee 5. The Extraordinary Four-Year-Old Ware III. Middle Childhood 6. The Extraordinary Five-Year-Old Taylor 7. The Extraordinary Six-Year-Old Jayne 8. The Extraordinary Seven-Year-Old Stulmaker 9. The Extraordinary Eight-Year-Old Akay IV. Late Childhood 10. The Extraordinary Nine-Year-Old Wilson 11. The Extraordinary Ten-Year-Old Ojiambo and Taylor 12. The Extraordinary Eleven-Year-Old Purswell 13. The Extraordinary Twelve-Year-Old Michero and Smith V. Therapist Resources 14. Age to Age Series Ray and Jayne Index

About the Author :
Dee C. Ray, PhD, is a distinguished teaching professor in the counseling program and director of the Child and Family Resource Clinic at the University of North Texas. She is the author of Advanced Play Therapy (Routledge, 2011), coauthor of Group Play Therapy (with Daniel Sweeney and Jennifer Baggerly, Routledge, 2014), and the editor of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Counseling.

Review :
"What a wonderful new resource for play therapists and others who work with children. It is truly ‘extraordinary’! Dr. Ray and her coauthors have found a very usable, focused way to describe the development of each childhood year. This is unusually detailed, very helpful, and insightful! The handouts for parents are an added plus and add to making this book a winner! And a new supplementary textbook for my classes!"—Linda Homeyer, PhD, LPCS, RPTS, Professor, Texas State University; Director, Door of Hope Counseling Center, New Braunfels Texas "A Therapist's Guide to Child Development is an essential addition to the play therapy literature. This edited book does a masterful job of integrating the classic works in child development with the work of play therapists. The structure of the book is makes it an easy-to-read resource, as the chapters are organized by age, and each chapter has the same sections. This book is a "must have" for play therapists, parents of young children, and students".—Phyllis Post, PhD, LPCS, RPT, Professor of Counseling and Director of the Multicultural Play Therapy Center, University of North Carolina at Charlotte "Dr. Ray's book is a practical resource that all child counselors and counselors-in-training should own! Dr. Ray integrates and applies developmental theories, clinical expertise, and brain research to developmentally-appropriate work with children birth to 12. This text will be one that child therapists will reference again and again in their work with children, parents, and teachers."—April Schottelkorb, PhD, LPC, RPT-S, Associate Professor of Counselor Education and Director of the Idaho Initiative for Play Therapy Studies, Boise State University "Dr Ray specializes in the field of play therapy and this book is aimed at therapists and counselors working in this field. There is an impressive list of contributors from academic, mental health and counseling backgrounds who each contribute a chapter to the book [...] This is a very interesting and useful guide to child development, which helps the reader to understand what is ‘normal’ at each age and stage of childhood." - SEN Magazine