This influential festschrift honours the legacy of Annette Karmiloff-Smith, a seminal thinker in the field of child development and a pioneer in developmental cognitive neuroscience. The current volume brings together many of the researchers, collaborators and students who worked with Professor Karmiloff-Smith to show how her ideas have influenced and continue to influence their own research. Over four parts, each covering a different phase or domain of Karmiloff-Smith’s research career, leading developmental psychologists in cognition, neuroscience and computer science reflect on her extensive contribution, from her early work with Piaget in Geneva to her innovative research project investigating children with Down syndrome to understand the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease. The chapters provide a mix of cutting-edge science and reminiscence, providing a fascinating insight into the historical contexts in which many of Annette’s theoretical insights arose, including such ideas as the microgenetic approach, representational redescription and neuroconstructivism. The chapters also provide updates about how earlier theoretical ideas have stood the test of time, and present unpublished data from the early years of Annette’s career. Taking Development Seriously is essential reading for students and scholars in child development and developmental neuroscience.

"This influential festschrift honours the legacy of Annette Kamiloff-Smith, a seminal thinker in the field of child development and a pioneer in developmental neuroscience. The current volume brings together many of the researchers, collaborators, and students who worked with Dr Kamiloff-Smith to show how her ideas have influenced and continue to influence their own research. Taking Development Seriously is essential reading for students and scholars in child development and developmental neuroscience"--

The Cambridge Handbook of Computational Cognitive Sciences is a comprehensive reference for this rapidly developing and highly interdisciplinary field. Written with both newcomers and experts in mind, it provides an accessible introduction of paradigms, methodologies, approaches, and models, with ample detail and illustrated by examples. It should appeal to researchers and students working within the computational cognitive sciences, as well as those working in adjacent fields including philosophy, psychology, linguistics, anthropology, education, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, computer science, and more.

"The chapter traces some key historical developments in the field of Down syndrome. After describing general issues of classification in intellectual disabilities, we describe Langdon Down's identification of the syndrome in the 1860s; the movement to name the syndrome after Down; the identification of trisomy 21 as the syndrome's cause; and the beginnings of sustained research attention to the syndrome. We end with a glimpse into the future, discussing issues of longer life spans, more integrated lives, and the roles of families, organizations, and self-advocates. Working together, researchers, practitioners, and individuals and their families can all continue to advance the lives of persons with Down syndrome"--

Roots of language was originally published in 1981 by Karoma Press (Ann Arbor). It was the first work to systematically develop a theory first suggested by Coelho in the late nineteenth century: that the creation of creole languages somehow reflected universal properties of language. The book also proposed that the same set of properties would be found to emerge in normal first-language acquisition and must have emerged in the original evolution of language. These proposals, some of which were elaborated in an article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1984), were immediately controversial and gave rise to a great deal of subsequent research in creoles, much of it aimed at rebutting the theory. The book also served to legitimize and stimulate research in language evolution, a topic regarded as off-limits by linguists for over a century. The present edition contains a foreword by the author bringing the theory up to date; a fuller exposition of many of its aspects can be found in the author's most recent work, More than nature needs (Harvard University Press, 2014).

What are the processes, from conception to adulthood, that enable a single cell to grow into a sentient adult? The processes that occur along the way are so complex that any attempt to understand development necessitates a multi-disciplinary approach, integrating data from cognitive studies, computational work, and neuroimaging - an approach till now seldom taken in the study of child development. Neuroconstructivism is a major new 2 volume publication that seeks to redress this balance, presenting an integrative new framework for considering development. Computer and robotic models provide concrete tools for investigating the processes and mechanisms involved in learning and development. Volume 2 illustrates the principles of 'Neuroconstructivist' development, with contributions from 9 different labs across the world. Each of the contributions illustrates how models play a central role in understanding development. The models presented include standard connectionist neural network models as well as multi-agent models. Also included are robotic models emphasizing the need to take embodiment and brain-system interactions seriously. A model of Autism and one of Specific Language Impairment also illustrate how atypical development can be understood in terms of the typical processes of development but operating under restricted conditions. This volume complements Volume 1 by providing concrete examples of how the 'Neuroconstructivist' principles can be grounded within a diverse range of domains, thereby shaping the research agenda in those domains.

Accompanying CD, also called a CD-ROM by publisher, contains ... "excerpts from more than twenty of the interviews analyzed." -- p. [4] of cover.