Laura E. Berk is a distinguished professor
of psychology at Illinois State University,
where she teaches human development
to both undergraduate and graduate students.
She received her bachelor's degree
in psychology from the University of California,
Berkeley, and her master's and doctoral
degrees in educational psychology
from the University of Chicago. She has
been a visiting scholar at Cornell University,
UCLA, Stanford University, and the
University of South Australia. Berk has
published widely on the effects of school
environments on children's development,
the development of private speech, and
most recently the role of make-believe play
in the development of self-regulation. Her
research has been funded by the U.S. Office of Education and
the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
It has appeared in many prominent journals, including
Child Development, Developmental Psychology, Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Development
and Psychopathology, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly.
Her empirical studies have attracted the attention of the general public, leading to contributions to
Psychology Today and Scientific American.
Berk has served as research editor for
Young Children and consulting editor for
Early Childhood Research Quarterly. She
is author of the chapter on the extracurriculum
for the Handbook of Research on
Curriculum (American Educational Re-search
Association), the chapter on development
for The Many Faces of Psychological
Research in the Twenty-First Century
(Society for the Teaching of Psychology),
and the article on Vygotsky for the Encyclopedia
of Cognitive Science. Her books
include Private Speech: From Social Interaction
to Self-Regulation, Scaffolding Children's
Learning: Vygotsky and Early Childhood
Education, and Landscapes of Development: An Anthology
of Readings. In addition to Development Through the Lifespan,
she is author of the best-selling texts Child Development and
Infants, Children, and Adolescents, published by Allyn and
Bacon. Her recently published book for parents and teachers
is Awakening Children's Minds: How Parents and Teachers Can
Make a Difference.
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