Pediatric Endocrinology

Now, clusters of temperaments are being investigated. For example, the combination of negative mood, high intensity, irregularity, and slow adaptability define a "difficult" child who is likely to have and to cause problems, while the cluster of positive mood, approach, and high adaptability usually predicts a successful child. While this may seem unsurprising, knowledge of these patterns can provide help to the pediatrician who is looking for guidance in helping to counsel or prognosticate for families. An ever-present danger, of course, is creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Finally, scales to measure temperament in older adolescents and young adults have now been devised. These make it possible to extend longitudinal studies and should provide us with a better picture of how much temperament tends to change and why. This book offers a good collection of the latest research on the concept of temperament. It assumes the reader knows the earlier literature, but the coherence and the writing style are clearer than is often the case in published symposia.