This book tries to trace the course of social development in the child from birth to maturity. It assumes that the neonate comes into the world with the endowment and the need to contact others, to attach itself to the surrounding humans and by this very endowment enforces these humans to attach themselves to it. The book follows the main vicissitudes in this process and describes in short outlines some of the disturbing manifestations of failure at different ages in the smooth progress of socialization - the process by which the child adapts to the requirements of the social group of which...

The frontispiece of this book is called 'The invisible handicap'. Most deaf children, with the exception of very unfortunate multiple-handicap children, look quite normal. The young babies who are sent to my clinics for confirm ation (or otherwise) of a hearing loss are very often handsome, delightful infants with no other problems. The deaf child only reveals his handicap when communi cation is attempted. At that point the picture changes. To an ill-informed observer this child, who had previously seemed quite normal and who had been seen to be playing normally, suddenl y appears' stu pid'....