Developmental Cascades

This chapter describes in depth the developmental cascade framework. The authors argue that developmental scientists need to recognize how a documented change reflects or builds on other observed changes, involves mechanisms in the same and other domains, and is influenced by the specific learning infants and young children might have had, as well as their genetic make-up. Thus, it is proposed that developmental cascades underpin every aspect of development change from walking to talking to playing to thinking. In this chapter, the authors suggests that the developmental cascade approach allows scientists to gain insight into the key questions of developmental science that have largely remained unsolved and raises new questions that developmentalists should be asking about change. The focus, the authors argue, should not be about when change occurs but rather on how change is the result of a multitude of factors across a range of levels and systems in the developing child.