39th Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society
Development At Risk: Typical
& Atypical Developmental Pathways
4-6 June 2009, Park City, Utah, USA
Organizers
Jake Burack (McGill University)
Louis Schmidt (McMaster University)
This year’s meeting takes the theme of
Development At Risk: Typical and Atypical
Developmental Pathways.
The discipline of developmental psychopathology
emerged from the integration of two ‘parent’ fields
of developmental psychology and psychopathology and is based
on the premise that studies of typical and atypical development
are mutually informative. Accordingly, the typical course of
development provides an essential metric for assessing the
extent to which any individual pattern of development might
be considered pathological or atypical in some way. Conversely,
examples of atypical development are essential to understanding
the organization of developing systems and challenges to the
assumption of universality. In this framework, atypicality
is considered within its broadest context to include any situation
in which development may be at-risk for less than optimal attainment
of societal or communal expectations at the relevant time points.
Risk is often discussed in terms of statistical likelihood
of poor outcomes; however, most outcomes are largely determined
by complex transactions among the individuals, families, physical
and social environments, communities, and larger societies.
The primary goal of the 2009 meeting is to foster
insights into some of the ways that development can be at-risk
within the context of an understanding of the ‘whole
person’. A secondary, but complementary, goal is to commemorate
early essential work in the emergence of the discipline of
developmental psychopathology.
Plenary speakers include:
- Nathan Fox (University of Maryland)
- Alan Sroufe (University of Minnesota)
- Jeanne Brooks-Gunn (Columbia University)
- Laurence Kirmayer (McGill University)
- Thomas Achenbach (University of Vermont)
- Stephanie Fryberg (University of Arizona)
Scholars interested in knowledge and
development are invited to participate whatever their discipline.
Submissions need not address the program theme – all
submissions are welcome.
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