Emotion, Cognition, Health, and Development in Children and Adolescents

This book focuses on integrating health and developmental issues in children and adolescents. Its primary objective is to demonstrate how development of emotions and cognition are involved in promoting health, preventing disease, and altering disease processes. A related objective is to show how disease processes may alter the course of development. These objectives are accomplished through the efforts of chapter authors who illustrate that developmental theories are useful in guiding research and producing findings that explain how health and development are reciprocally intertwined.

This volume differs from others in terms of its developmental theoretical perspectives and related findings. Most previous work on integrating health and behavior has shown relationships between the two, but has not been designed to explain the processes that link these two phenomena. The theoretical perspectives on which the current chapters are based show how emotional and cognitive developmental processes may alter health and disease outcomes. The entire volume is further strengthened because the theories and findings are based on multidisciplinary perspectives, making the volume of interest to a broad array of disciplines.