Concentrating on the development of infants, this book emphasizes the growing concern with naturalistic observations of everyday life. Analysis of such observations can improve the understanding of the relation between the behaviour of the caregiver and the emerging competencies of the child.

1: First Relationships; Introduction; 1: Early Social Development; 2: Infant–Mother Attachment and Social Development: ‘Socialisation' as a Product of Reciprocal Responsiveness to Signals; 3: The Development of Affect in Infancy and Early Childhood; 4: The Father's Role in the Neonatal Period; 2: The Process of Development; Introduction; 5: Cognitive Foundations and Social Functions of Imitation, and Intermodal Representation in Infancy; 6: The Parental Frame; 7: The Effects of Postnatal Depression on Mother–Infant Relations and Infant Development; 8: The Social Context of Development; 3: Relationships and Early Learning; Introduction; 9: The Language of the Mother–Child Relationship; 10: A Cultural Perspective on the Transition From Prelinguistic to Linguistic Communication; 11: Culture and Early Social Interactions; 12: Nature and Uses of Immaturity; 4: The Construction of Identity; Introduction; 13: The Reconstruction of Social Knowledge in the Transition from Sensorimotor to Conceptual Activity: The Gender System; 14: Children Caring for Babies: Age and Sex Differences in Response to Infant Signals and to the Social Context; 15: The Self-Building Potential of Pretend Play, or ‘I Got a Fish, All by Myself