Product Description

Learning begins in the first days of life. Scientists are now discovering how young children develop emotionally and intellectually, and are beginning to realize that from birth babies already know a staggering amount about the world around them. In the first book of its kind for a popular audience, three leading US scientists draw on twenty-five years of research in philosophy, psychology, computer science, linguistics and neuroscience to reveal what babies know and how they learn it.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #60516 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Learning begins in the first days of life. Scientists are now beginning to realise that from birth babies already know a staggering amount about the world around them. In the first book of its kind for a popular audience, three leading scientists draw on 25 years of research in philosophy, psychology, computer science, linguistics and neurosciences to reveal what babies know and how they learn it.

About the Author
Alison Gopnik received her BA from McGill University and her PhD. from Oxford University. She was a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada University Research Fellow at the University of Toronto from 1983-1988 and in 1988 became a professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. She is an internationally recognized leader in the study of children's learning and the author of over 100 articles and two books, WORDS, THOUGHTS AND THEORIES (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff), MIT Press, 1997 and THE SCIENTIST IN THE CRIB (coauthored with Andrew Meltzoff and Patricia Kuhl) William Morrow, 1999. and THE SCIENTIST IN THE CRIB was enthusiastically reviewed in US News and World Report, Time, Science, The New Yorker, the Washington Post and The New York Review of Books (among others). She has also written for The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books and the New York Times. She has been President of the Society for Philosophy of Psychology, Associate Editor of Child Development, the leading journal in the field and an Osher Fellow at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. She lives in Berkeley, California with her husband and three sons.

Customer Reviews

Fascinating read
As a university educated mother I found 'How Babies Think' fascinating. The ideas carefully and articulately explained in the book have opened my eyes to the way my daughter is developing in front of me. Unlike a typical parenting book, the emphasis is on the mental process and placing this in context, rather than 'what your baby SHOULD be doing by X months'. I've recommended this book to many of my parent friends to help them understand their own young children.

Useful for students?
I read this a book as a new parent and found it wonderfully infomrative and entertaining. I judged it as a university lecturer, health professional and someone who studied developmental psychology in depth as an undergraduate.The book is excellent - it is a model of good communication. Accesibility is sometimes quite compatible with academic rigour even though many in the business act as if it is not. If it's not your thing fine but don't knock it!

It is not designed as a sole textbook. It pulls together a broad range of higly complex research in a way that is understandable and gives the bigger picture of a whole child at the centre. It gives a good account of the conclusions of up to date research but it doesn't give detail of it nor is it the best source to use to get straight to the primary research. Its a small price to pay for making the book so readable. I would hope that students have access to other texts and references to primary sources in any case.

The role it can serve and does serve well is to give a broad picture to any novice to the 'academic' discipline. New students need that more than new parents. New parents will I think enjoy the ride and might benefit from the ocassional reminder that all that dribbling gurgling and chaos emanates from a sophiticated being who is solving problems now and will be teaching you new things in a year or two....

misleading title
This book reports on some interesting findings about the way babies think. However, the rest of the book talks about how cool it is to be a scientist, and especially a developmental scientist, like the authors. In fact, just omitting the words "developmental psychologist" from the text would probably reduce it to half its size. The book title should be related to the science of developmental psychology, and not to how babies think. I'm sure there are better books out there explaining to us parents the way babies think.