Customer Reviews

Charlie Rose with Alison Gopnik, John Bruer & Kyle Pruett; Lawrence Kasdan (September 20, 1999)

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Four experts speak to Charlie Rose about Child Development between the ages of 0 to 3. One argues that there has been an exaggeration and hyping of the effect of education in these years on total life - development. They discuss the opposite error many parents make believing that because they themselves cannot remember what happened in those early years they are not important. President of the James S. McDonnell Foundation John Bruer is the expert who warns against exaggerating the all-importance of the early years. Professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley Alison Gopnik talks about the difficulty of educating the broader public in any complex scientific subject. She focuses on behavior changes during these three years. Professor of child psychiatry at Yale University Kyle Pruett gives the example of what happens between the ages of ninth months and eleven when the child learns to point specifically at an object designate it clearly. He says there is all the difference in the world in the development of children whose pointing gestures are wholly ignored and those who are responded to and related to . The latter who believe others are interested in what they are interested in generally turn out to be more competent adults.
I enjoyed learning from this discussion though I will admit to being a bit confused at times over whether these people were really agreeing or disagreeing with each other- and about what.