Review of PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHILD: PERSONAL, SOCIAL, AND DISTURBED CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Reviews the book, Psychology of the Child: Personal, Social, and Disturbed Child Development by Robert I. Watson (see record 2007-02091-000). Watson's entry to the increasing field of recent texts in child psychology has both assets and liabilities. Its content is sufficiently complete and carefully handled so that the book should be quite useful as a text for sound instruction in child psychology. While the author is essentially a clinician, his book displays clinical emphasis in only two senses : 1) the stated belief that findings from clinical child psychology have tended to be much neglected in other child psychology texts, and 2) the inclusion of three chapters devoted more or less exclusively to consideration of disturbances in child development. The presentation of research evidence in this text is worthy of particular commendation. The research which Watson has selected for review is handled both critically and cautiously. His criticism is objective and clearly stated, and he does not appear to be guilty of throwing babies away with the bath water. Among several discussions which might be cited specifically as examples of this achievement are his recommendations for interpretation of the Sears, Maccoby, and Levin maternal interview findings, his presentation of Piagetian ideas, and his discussion of mutual interrelationships between parent behavior and child behavior. All of these discussions indicate thoughtful assimilation of research evidence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)