Family Influences on Early Development: Integrating the Science of Normative Development, Risk and Disability, and Intervention

The focus of this chapter is on family patterns of interaction that influence the social and intellectual competence of young children. It is the development of social and intellectual competencies that enables children to pursue their own goals as effectively as possible and to do so in the context of larger family values, expectations, and routines. Of importance, the development-enhancing qualities of family patterns of interaction can and do differ substantially across families, and many of these variations can materially alter children's developmental trajectories, especially during the early childhood years. Indeed, families challenged by various combinations of environmental and psychosocial stressors or risk factors often establish family patterns of interaction that are far from optimal with respect to their development-enhancing features From another perspective, and the one emphasized in this chapter, owing to genetic conditions, infectious agents, or other biologically based causes, many children exhibit uneven and unusual developmental characteristics that pose significant challenges to optimal family patterns of interaction for even the most conscientious and devoted of families. Nevertheless, as will be seen, irrespective of the nature and origin of stressors to optimal family patterns of interaction, a common developmental framework can be useful in understanding factors influencing children developing typically as well as those children who are vulnerable to developmental problems as a consequence of biological or environmental factors. Moreover, it is this same developmental framework that can serve as a guide to design and evaluate the effectiveness of early interventions intended to maximize the development-enhancing features of family patterns of interaction for vulnerable children. In fact, our understanding of development can be substantially enriched by a 3