Stress and Coping in Infancy and Childhood

Book excerpt: The fourth volume based on the annual University of Miami symposia on stress and coping, this new addition to the series is the first to focus on developmental and clinical stressors during infancy and childhood. While developmental stressors such as early separation and stranger anxiety, novelty stress, and fear-evoked personal distress, arise during normal development, clinical stressors result from certain conditions that are relatively common in infancy and early childhood such as premature birth and respiratory disease. Various therapies are discussed -- for example, relaxation and massage -- that can alleviate the stress associated with psychiatric conditions in childhood and adolescence, including depression and adjustment disorder. The result is an integration of diverse research and theory on the psychophysiological, developmental, and psychosocial aspects of stress and coping in animals and humans by some of the leading researchers in the field.