Exploring Lifespan Development (2024)

Exploring Lifespan Development, Fourth Edition, the essentials version of Development Through the Lifespan, Seventh Edition, by best-selling author Laura E. Berk, includes the same topics, the same number of chapters, and the same outstanding features, with a focus on the most important information and a greater emphasis on practical, real-life applications. The text’s up-to-date research, strong multicultural and cross-cultural focus, along with Berk’s engaging writing style, help students carry their learning beyond the classroom and into their personal and professional lives.

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About Exploring Lifespan Development, Fourth Edition

Exploring Lifespan Development, Fourth Edition

About Exploring Lifespan Development - Vantage Learning Platform, Fourth Edition

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Exploring Lifespan Development, Fourth Edition

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Thoroughly Engaging Writing Style

• Berk makes the study of human development both involving and pleasurable for students. Exploring Lifespan Developmentis written in an engaging, personal style — one that is highly accessible — and contains real-life human-interest stories. The author encourages students to relate what they read to their own lives. Stories and vignettes of real individuals, a Berk signature feature, open each chapter and continue throughout the text to illustrate developmental principles and teach through engaging narrative. The text “teaches while it tells a story.

Unparalleled Breadth and Depth of Research

• Meticulously researched material, including over 2,300 new reference citations, as well as the latest research and findings, reflects major changes and discoveries in the field, and is conveyed to the student in a clear, story-like fashion that humanizes the complex developmental process.

Exceptional Integration of Culture and Diversity

• Multicultural and cross-cultural material is presented not only in the text's research and in many positive and diverse examples, but also through rich photos and figures, which enhance student interest and understanding. Cultural Influences boxes deepen the attention to culture threaded throughout the text and accentuate both multicultural and cross-cultural variations in development.

Appealing and Meaningful Applications

• Integrated throughout the text, these applications show students how their learning relates to real-world situations. Applications are relevant to students pursuing a variety of fields, including psychology, education, nursing and other health professions, sociology, anthropology, family studies, and social services.
• Applying What We Know tables provide practical real-life applications based on theory and research findings. Berk speaks directly to students, as parents or future parents and to those pursuing different careers and areas of study, such as health care, teaching, social work, or counseling.
• The Look and Listen feature promotes active learning, asking students to observe what real individuals say and do, speak with or observe parents, teachers, or other professionals, and inquire into community programs and practices that influence children, adolescents, and adults.

Other Outstanding Pedagogical Features

• These features support students’ mastery of the subject matter, inspire critical thinking, and help students engage with information on child development, applying it to the real word.
  • Milestones tables summarize major physical, cognitive, language, emotional, and social attainments of each age period. In addition to offering an overview of change, each entry is page-referenced to provide the student with a convenient tool for review.
  • Ask Yourself critical thinking questions have been thoroughly revised and expanded into a unique pedagogical feature. Three types of questions prompt students to think about human development in diverse ways:
  • Connect questions help students build an image of the whole person by integrating what they have learned across age periods and domains of development.
  • Apply questions encourage application of knowledge to controversial issues and problems faced by children, adolescents, adults, and professionals who work with them.
  • Reflect questions personalize the study of human development by asking students to reflect on their own development, life experiences, and values.

Four Types of Thematic Boxes

• Biology and Environment boxes highlight the growing attention to the complex, bidirectional relationship between biology and environment.
• Cultural Influences boxes deepen the attention to culture threaded throughout the text and accentuate both multicultural and cross-cultural variations in development.
• Social Issues boxes discuss the impact of social conditions on children, adolescents, and adults, and emphasize the need for sensitive social and public policies to ensure their well-being. They are divided into two types:
• Social Issues: Health boxes address values and practices relevant to physical and mental health.
• Social Issues: Education boxes focus on home, school, and community influences on learning.