ABSTRACT
Learning how to cope with adversity is an important part of healthy child development. The field of early childhood intervention stands at an important crossroads. An exciting new era in early childhood policy, practice, and research lies at the convergence of these two agendas—an era driven by science, creativity, and pragmatic problem-solving in the service of building a more humane present and more promising for all young children and their families. Science tells us that early childhood is a time of both great opportunity and considerable risk. A strong foundation in early childhood lays the groundwork for responsible citizenship, economic prosperity, healthy communities, and successful parenting of the next generation. The science explaining the phenomenon is grounded in the basic biological principle that the immature organism "reads" salient environmental characteristics in the service of developing its capacity to adapt to the environment in which it "expects" it will live.
