The Oxford Handbook of Intellectual Disability and Development

Though the tremendous amount of recently-emerged developmentally-oriented research has produced much progress in understanding the personality, social, and emotional characteristics of persons with intellectual disabilities (ID), there is still much we don't know, and the vast task of precisely charting functioning in all these areas, while also identifying the associated fine-tuned, complex, and intertwined questions that crop up along the way, seems daunting and insurmountable.

The goal of The Oxford Handbook of Intellectual Disability and Development is to update the field with new, precise research and sophisticated theory regarding individuals with ID provided by seasoned developmental theorists who have made original conceptual contributions to the field. This volume is divided into five general sections (ID and its connection to genetics, relationships, cognitive development, socio-emotional development, and development of language), with each focused on a domain of functioning or aspect of life that is inherent to an integrated, transactional perspective of development. While developmental approaches to understanding persons with intellectual disability will continue to emerge, this comprehensive volume is a must-read for specialists and developmental psychologists who must have the conceptual foundations for examining the developmental trajectories across persons with any of the many different ID etiologies.

Jacob A. Burack, Ph.D., is Professor of School/Applied Developmental Psychology and Human Development in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology at McGill University, Director of the McGill Youth Study Team (MYST), and a researcher at Hôpital Rivière-des-Prairies.

Robert M. Hodapp, Ph.D., is a Professor of Special Education in the Department of Special Education at Vanderbilt Peabody College and Director of Research at Vanderbilt University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities.

Grace Iarocci, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Developmental and Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Simon Fraser University, a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar, and Director of the Autism and Developmental Disorders Lab at SFU.

Edward Zigler, Ph.D., is Sterling Professor of Psychology (Emeritus) at Yale University, founder and Director Emeritus of Yale's Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the 1970's, he was the founding Director of the U.S. Office of Child Development (now ACYF) and Chief of the U.S. Children's Bureau.