Infants and Toddlers: Caregiving and Responsive Curriculum Development

Each chapter opens with Learning Objectives and relevant professional early childhood standards, and the inside covers include a standards correlation chart to make it easy to see where standards are covered throughout the text. In addition, Appendix B provides specific information about CDA Competency Goals and the NAEYC Standards for Early Childhood Professional Preparation: Initial Licensure Programs.

"Spotlight" features highlight key research topics, professional child care organizations and the personal experiences of child care professionals to provide valuable real-world perspective for readers. In addition, in "Spotlight on Practice--Voices from the Field" features included in every chapter, practicing teachers apply and reflect on concepts discussed in the chapter.

"Reading Checkpoints" placed at key points within each chapter help improve comprehension by asking readers to pause and consider what they have just read.

Numerous case studies present real-life examples of important concepts and principles, helping connect chapter content to practical applications and relevant scenarios readers may encounter as working professionals.

The author maintains a strong focus on special needs children throughout the text, providing helpful insights and emphasis to prepare readers to work effectively with infants and toddlers with varied needs.

Appendix A provides developmental milestones for children from birth to 36 months for the four major areas of development, assisting caregivers in recording observations and assessing each child's current level of development.

The author revised “The Three As” to "Attention, Appreciation and Attunement" to minimize confusion among the concepts. The new term "appreciation" communicates that adults accept very young children as they are--not based on an idea of who the adult wants them to be.

Two new spotlight boxed features share information from recently published books. In Chapter 3, the Spotlight on Corisol investigates how children differ in their responses to environmental factors and how those responses relate to the concept of resiliency. The Spotlight on Care and Education in Chapter 4 invites readers to explore their values around care and consider how those values might impact their work with very young children.

The Tenth Edition incorporates new research results and scholarly articles into each chapter. Examples include new research on how language development is impacted by a hearing loss (chapter 2), how children learn labels for words (chapter 12), current thoughts on how adults and peers influence the development of prosocial behaviors (chapter 6), and the concept of Sudden Unexpected Infant Death in addition to SIDS (chapter 9).

Expanded "Spotlight on Practice" boxed features provide additional exploration of the ways readers can apply key concepts in each chapter when working with very young children, their families and/or colleagues.