Monday, August 29, 2005

Welcome to Spanning Life

Our lifespans are increasing and so is our knowledge about what goes on between conception and death. When I was in Graduate School, courses called Developmental Psychology were mostly about children - birth to adolescence. There were few books on other parts of the life span. One Psychologist I knew used to say that as psychologists aged; we'd be studying more about older people. That has been true. Psychology is a youngish science itself - and now that those of us who were in the field of Developmental Psychology are "old" we are more and more interested in the aging process.

Way back when, I did infancy research and many were surprised that anyone wold study infants. Now one can find classes and books not only on infant development per se; but on it's many many aspects such as: infant perception, infant speech, infant socialization etc. My humerus response to this increase in knowledge is that I am glad I am not in graduate school anymore.

But it is important to know some of it - though not all - and this blog will be more or less the course I would teach if I were not having to use a textbook. Think of it as a LifeSpan Development course for the non-psych major...