Even a single day can bring changes in what a new baby can do. This informative program offers parents and caregivers ways in which to monitor a child's intellectual growth within a wide range of normal activity. A child development specialist, a pediatrician, and a parent explain what is going on in a baby's young brain and what can be expected to happen over the first five years of life.

From simple gurgles to the ingenious storytelling of a three-year-old, this program illustrates how children learn to convey thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The development of nonverbal communication skills is examined as the film's young subjects begin to parse out basic sounds and facial expressions, then apply what they discover in a way that becomes more proactive, verbal, and finally composed of logical sentences. Viewers can watch this...

Is a baby actually learning something when he knocks down a stack of blocks? What happens in a toddler's mind when she "feeds" her teddy bear? Why does it take just as much work to bake an imaginary cake as a real one? This program explores the process through which young children begin to reason, plan, and solve both concrete and abstract problems. Emphasizing that babies are driven to make sense of the world in the same way that they are driven...

The popular Xbox and PlayStation games are all the rage from toddlers to teens. But whatever tech-savvy experience kids get from video games, hands-on play still may be the most important activity for them. Child development research shows us how basic toy blocks can build great minds and skills in kids.

Parents often disagree about the best way to raise children, and when they seek professional advice, find the experts are at odds with each other, too. This program helps caregivers sort through the contradictions as it summarizes some major theories of child development. Pointing out that different philosophies each tend to focus on only one aspect of human growth, the video reviews Piaget's ideas about cognitive stages, the psychoanalytic theories...

Whether it's physical or verbal, bullying can be both physically and emotionally harmful, as well as life-threatening if not dealt with in a timely manner. Most people have been victims of bullying or know others who have been. This engaging two-part video set introduces the topic of bullying and offers bullying-prevention strategies using age-appropriate language and grade-specific concepts for middle school students. In the first program, students...

What is it that makes us human beings - nature or nurture? Understanding the development of the human mind is crucial to providing infants and children with optimal educational and social conditions. In this 2009 Falling Walls video lecture, developmental psychologist Tricia Striano discusses how social cognitive skills are built and what we can do to help infants and children to communicate and learn. After receiving her Ph.D. from Emory University,...

Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware, than grown-ups? In this TEDTalk, cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.

Easygoing at age seven doesn't always translate into easygoing at 27 - in the course of two decades, a laid-back kid may change into an aggressive or attention-starved adult. But temperament does offer a window into the development of coping skills. Focusing on 11 children as they cross the 7-year age threshold, this program shows how each subject's inherent temperament shapes his or her ability to deal with the pressures of the schoolyard, family...

Adolescents have both the cognitive and the emotional capacity to deepen their emotional intelligence, and for that reason secondary schools are being viewed as an ideal setting in which to teach and promote EI. In this program, Dr. Karen Hansen, coordinator of the EI and Education Research Unit of Swinburne University, compares and contrasts definitions and models of EI. In addition, she suggests practical ways in which educators can promote and...