A thorough and detailed understanding of normal development in childhood provides a basis upon which we can build knowledge of children’s mental health difficulties. Development refers to expected patterns of change over time, beginning at conception and continuing throughout the lifespan. It is a lifelong process and encompasses different domains, including the physical, social, emotional, and cognitive.

Is the way my child plays with others suggestive of Autism? Could his bad dreams indicate anxiety? Does the fact she can’t sit through a whole film mean she has ADHD? Only with an in-depth knowledge of what is developmentally ‘normal’, can we begin to elicit whether behaviours that deviate from these norms might indicate disorder. This is the basis of the developmental psychopathology that underpins the practice of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. What is considered ‘normal’ development involves a complex and continuous interplay between genetic and environmental (including sociocultural) factors. Despite some variation, there is a consistency and reliability of functioning in children that remains steadfast from generation to generation.

In this chapter we will consider areas including the milestones of development in early childhood; attachment theory, temperament and personality; theories of emotional, cognitive and social development; and development in adolescence.

This chapter argues that researchers in child development and children’s well-being should take culture seriously by showing how social and cultural settings in which children grow up matter for understanding the varieties of childhoods documented ethnographically. It begins with a historical review of anthropological research on childhood and children’s worlds. Much of the early work on children’s development in culture focused on how children become competent members of their societies. This tended to present children’s development in locally normative terms and social and cultural development as static. Later research focused on the problem of accelerating global social change and documented the struggles children, their families, and communities confronted in the face of social change. It also examined the positive role children played, particularly as sources of innovation in adaptive strategies. Children were seen less as sites of internalization and more as agents of active participation. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the strengths that psychological anthropologists bring to childhood studies and possible future directions for new research.

Chapter 50 covers the topic of child and adolescent mental health services. Through a case vignette with topical MCQs for consolidation of learning, readers are brought through the management of young patients with psychiatric disorders from first presentation to subsequent complications of the conditions and its treatment. Things covered include the general principles of prescribing in children and adolescent patients with psychiatric disorders, the use of antidepressants, the use of mood stabilisers, the use of antipsychotics, treatment of anxiety disorders.

Epilepsy syndromes (electroclinical syndromes) are well-recognized groupings of clinical (seizure types) and EEG features that occur together. Each syndrome typically shares a common age of onset, deficits (intellectual dysfunction), treatment and prognosis. Syndromes are classified based on their onset, epilepsy type (focal, generalized, or mixed) and development of epileptic encephalopathy (disorder in which epileptic activity contributes to severe impairments in cognition and behavior). Relatively benign syndromes are typically associated with focal, generalized tonic-clonic (GTC), typical absences and myoclonic seizures. Epileptic encephalopathies are typically associated with atonic, tonic, atypical absences, and epileptic spasms in addition to the other seizure types. [106 words/729 characters]

This chapter describes the spectrum of age-related maturation of electrographic patterns through preterm, neonatal, infantile, childhood, and adolescence periods. Neonatal EEGs must be interpreted in the context of corrected age and physiological state. Sustained continuity is the hallmark of maturation. Preterm records are discontinuous irrespective of state while term records are continuous in all states. Between 30 and 37 weeks, the background becomes more continuous during wakefulness and active sleep compared to quiet sleep. At term, activité moyenne is present during wakefulness and active sleep and trace alternans occurs during quiet sleep. Anterior dysrhythmia and graphoelements occur between 32 and 44 weeks corrected age. Sharp transients may be normal in neonates. A reactive posterior dominant rhythm emerges at three months of age and attains alpha range at around 2 to 3 years of age. Asynchronous sleep spindles emerge before 3 months and synchronize at 6 months of age. [144 words/855 characters]

This chapter provides a preliminary Latinx literary history of both the representation of Latinxs in video games and how games shape narratives of Latinidad in the twenty-first century. The chapter first examines how non-Latinxs have dominated Latinx narratives and representation, shaping a narrow concept of who is Latinx and what it means to live as a Latinx person. While AAA games continue to circulate stereotyped images of Latinxs, more recent game narratives authored by Latin American and Latinx creators and distributed through independent publishers challenge these representations. The chapter provides close readings of Guacamelee! and Guacamelee! 2 from Drinkbox Studies and Minority Media’s Papo & Yo, both created by Latin American immigrants to North America. These games subvert gaming tropes and use characterization and worldbuilding to showcase the diversity of Latinidades. Finally, the chapter assesses video games that expand representation (including AfroLatinidades and trans Latinidades) as well as narratives that use ludic structures, such as Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House: A Memoir and Nona Fernández’s Space Invaders.

Across Australia and beyond, early childhood education (ECE) services play a significant role in the everyday lives of infants, toddlers and their families. For some decades, the enrolment of infants and toddlers has increased to the extent that, in today’s Australian society, around 40% of birth to 24-month-olds and nearly 60% of two-year-olds spend at least part of their week in an early childhood service. More still balance ECE service attendance with informal care arrangements with family members and friends. With these figures echoed across many countries worldwide, the widespread uptake of infant and toddler early childhood programs has meant that this generation of infants and toddlers and their families are experiencing a markedly different start to life than previous generations. It is now the norm for infant–toddler care to be spread across multiple contexts both within and outside of the walls of the family home, and for the responsibility for early learning to be shared between family and non-familial adults.

Examines some philosophical issues raised by the problem of dressing children. These include Enlightenment discussions of childhood, education, and clothing, which arguably had a large impact on the development of children’s fashion. Discusses the extent to which parents and caretakers shape children’s identity through their choice of clothing.

The health and well-being of families is an important consideration for federal, state, and/or local levels of government. Family health policies based on recent knowledge of early childhood development have evolved to emphasise the importance of providing every child with the best possible start to life. Childhood sets the foundation for future health and well-being and is recognised by the 1979 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. To impact health inequalities, government policies and services must address the social determinants of early child health, development and well-being.

A 7-year-old girl visited the outpatient clinic because of difficulty walking. She had never managed to run properly, and experienced frequent falls ever since she began walking independently at the age of 18 months. Jumping was not possible, and when stepping up or down, she needed support below her arms. There was no fluctuation of symptoms during the day, but she had suffered from periods that could last several weeks in which using the stairs was completely impossible. She was unable to blow up a balloon and her speech was slow and poorly articulated. There were no complaints about chewing or swallowing. She had a healthy non-identical twin sister and the family history was unremarkable.