Abstract
In recent years, we have seen a renewed interest in the role of childhood experiences on an individual’s health and wellbeing, with income, adversity, urbanicity and social support having all been shown to have a significant effect later in life. This book highlights the current research and ideas on the specific effect that both education and family history may have on an individual’s lifestyle and attitude to work in later life. In order to address the spectrum of developmental challenges and unite various fields, the authors draw from a multidisciplinary pool of academics and clinicians from medicine, psychology and educational sciences to compile a collection of essays through which they aim to bridge theoretical and research concepts and findings, with clinical practice.
The book is split into three sections titled ‘Family’, ‘Child & Adolescent Development’ and ‘Education’, with each section consisting of a number of essays from renowned experts. Part 1, ‘Family’, covers the key expected themes of parental health and relationships, but also includes chapters on ‘The Impact of Grandparents on their Grandchildren’ and ‘The Psychological and Social Impacts of Having a Child with a Disability’. The inclusion of more specialist areas of research adds an extra dimension to the book, which continues with later essays including ‘Migration, Health and Edu-cation’ and ‘Discussing Museum Learning Practices for Children with Disabilities’. The broad range of topics throughout the text makes for an interesting and varied read, while also ensuring that there is minimal repetition of information between chapters.
Each essay provides an in-depth literature review of the topic and tends to be split into subchapters which are clearly labelled, allowing the reader to be easily signposted to their area of interest. While the authors state this book is aimed at a wide audience of medical, education and health professionals, I would recommend this text to students who are still completing training. I believe the book would act as a great basis to start their reading and learning about the area, providing sufficient background and details to give a solid understanding of current ideas and research. The authors have intentionally kept complex terminology and statistical jargon to a minimum in order to ensure a wider audience, and this, along with the high-quality writing from eminent authors in the field, has resulted in a clear and easily accessible text.