Dynamic Child, The, Canadian Edition, 1st edition
Published by Pearson Canada (January 1, 2019) © 2020
  • Franklin R Manis
  • Alissa Pencer

Title overview

For courses in Child Development

Experience the wonder of the childhood journey

The Dynamic Child provides students with the unique opportunity to influence the development of a virtual child, learn developmental science, and experience the wonder of a child growing before their eyes. Fully digital and highly engaging, The Dynamic Child affords students a hands-on way to virtually experience child development as they learn. In this resource, Frank Manis, author and creator of MyVirtualChild, combines his best-selling simulation technology for child development courses with a compelling, original narrative. By enabling students to make virtual parenting decisions as they read about and engage with developmental systems theories and interactive media, The Dynamic Child makes contemporary child development research and theory both comprehensible and deeply meaningful to students. 

Hallmark features of this title

  • Observing the Dynamic Child Video Activities: Each chapter contains two application activities that prompt students to watch a short video without narration and analyze children's behaviour or to observe parents and teachers talking about children's behaviour within specific contexts like the home or preschool. Students are often highly engaged with short videos. Observing and reflecting on children's behaviour (or adults' comments about children's behaviour) helps students to internalize key concepts.
  • Thinking Like a … Professional Video Interviews: Each chapter integrates within the narrative a video interview featuring a professional discussing applied questions about child development. We have included interviews with a wide array of professionals, including social workers, nutritionists, medical professionals, speech and occupational therapists, educators, counsellors, and psychologists. 
  • Thinking About the Whole Child (My Virtual Child Group Activities): Students are prompted to engage in small-group discussions (in class or online) comparing their virtual children at the end of the chapters devoted to physical and cognitive development. For example, at the end of Chapter 8, students are asked how their child's cognitive and language development is proceeding and why their child might be behind, at, or ahead of norms based on research they read about in the chapter. Doing this as an in-class group activity allows students to observe differences in their virtual children's developmental trajectories. They can use concepts from the text to form hypotheses about sources of the individual differences.

Key features

New 2024 Current Event Boxes

  • Chapter 1: Dismantling Developmentalism to be added on the "Introduction" slate
  • Chapter 3: Black and Indigenous Mothers: Prenatal Care to be added on the "Introduction" slate.
  • Chapter 13: Puberty Rituals around the World to be added on the "Introduction" slate

Table of contents

  1. The Study of Child and Adolescent Development 
  2. Heredity and Environment 
  3. Prenatal Development, Birth, and the Newborn 
  4. Physical Development and Health in Infants and Toddlers 
  5. Cognitive Development in Infants and Toddlers
  6. Social and Emotional Development in Infants and Toddlers
  7. Physical Development and Health in Early Childhood 
  8. Cognitive and Language Development in Early Childhood
  9. Social and Emotional Development in Early Childhood 
  10. Physical Development and Health in Middle Childhood 
  11. Cognitive Development in Middle Childhood
  12. Social and Emotional Development in Middle Childhood
  13. Physical Development and Health in Adolescence
  14. Cognitive Development in Adolescence 
  15. Social and Emotional Development in Adolescence

Author bios

Professor Frank Manis received his BA from Pomona College in 1975 and PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1981. He is a Professor of Psychology and Education at the University of Southern California, where he has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in developmental psychology and literacy development for 38 years. He has published about 70 articles and book chapters on child development, reading disabilities, development of literacy in both the primary and secondary language, and cognitive functioning in special populations of children. Much of this work was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The major focus of his research has been on the identification of cognitive processes underlying differences in reading skills among children with reading disabilities.

Frank reviews for several journals in the field, including Scientific Studies of Reading, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, and Developmental Psychology, and was editor of Scientific Studies of Reading for six years. He is also the co-author of MyVirtualChild (with Mike Radford) and MyVirtualLife (with Janine Buckner) and author of MyVirtualTeen, interactive websites for simulating the process of child, adolescent, and adult development. Frank was a member of the University of Southern California's Center for Excellence in Teaching from 2006–2009, was a Dornsife Distinguished Faculty Fellow from 2011–2013, and received teaching, research, and service awards at his university in 2004 and 2012.

Dr. Alissa Pencer received her B.Sc. (first class honours in Psychology) at St. Francis Xavier University in 1998, and her M.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2004) in Clinical Psychology at the University of Calgary. Her research spanned infant social development, early language development, and adolescent mental health, demonstrating her interests across developmental periods and areas of development. She completed her Pre-Doctoral Internship in Clinical Psychology at the IWK Health Centre where she then worked as a scientist-practitioner in the child and adolescent mental health and addictions program for over 10 years. Dr. Pencer is currently a Registered Psychologist and a Senior Instructor in the Departments of Psychology & Neuroscience and Psychiatry at Dalhousie University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in developmental psychology as well as graduate courses re: various aspects of child clinical psychology. She remains actively involved in research and has many published papers and conference presentations, with expertise in the areas of prevention and intervention for anxiety disorders, psychosis, and substance use in youth.

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