There has been an increasing interest in the application of dynamical systems to the study of development over the last decade. The explosion of the dynamical systems framework in the physical and biological aspects has opened the door to a new zeitgeist for studying development. This appeal to dynamical systems by developmentalists is natural given the intuitive links between the established fundamental problems of development and the conceptual and operational scope of nonlinear dynamical systems. This promise of a new approach and framework within which to study development has led to some progress in recent years but also a growing appreciation of the difficulty of both fully examining the metaphor and realizing its potential. Divided into four sections, this book is a result of a recent conference on dynamical systems and development held at The Pennsylvania State University. The first three parts reflect the content domains of development that have given most theoretical and empirical attention to the potential applications of dynamical systems - physical growth and movement, cognition, and communication.
These sections show that a range of nonlinear models have been applied to a range of developmental phenomena. The fourth and final section highlights two particular methodological issues that hold important implications for the modelling of developmental phenomena with dynamical systems techniques.