ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of these four essays and shows that some of the themes that run through them. The first essay, Basic Concepts and Procedures in the Study of Behavior Development, is centered around M. B. McGraw's long-standing concerns the methods used in developmental research. She addresses three sets of issues: the importance of concepts, the nature of organisms, and the longitudinal method. The second essay is McGraw's classic review of literature on the maturation of behavior that appeared in L. Carmichael's Manual of Child Psychology. The third essay, written by McGraw in 1969, is an unpublished "Open Letter" to parents of young infants. Developmental problems are viewed in a practical context: the problem of getting women to allow their intuition to guide their child-care decisions. The final piece is a foreword written by McGraw in 1981 for a new series, Advances in infant Research, dedicated to her.
