ABSTRACT
A number of reviews revealed that through 1980 much of the literature on black children’s development had been written from a deficit perspective. In terms of contributions, the reviews of research on black children indicate that black infants actually provide a lot of information about normative development that has been valuable in studying developmental issues. For instance, the preliminary work for development of the Ainsworth Strange Situation was done with children of African descent. The study of black children has also increased our knowledge about children “at risk” for various developmental problems because black children are disproportionately represented in the “at risk” population. A cursory inspection of Child Development Abstracts from 1980 to the present, indicates that ways of referring to black or African American children have changed. Very little research has been directed toward examining black infants’ cognitive development, with the exception, again, of using criteria such as performance on standard assessment instruments.
