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Opening Plenary

Thursday, December 8, 2011

5:00 pm - 6:00 pm

Deborah Phillips, PhD, Georgetown University, Washington, DC

Undocumented Parents of Infants and Toddlers: The Daily Realities of Raising Their Children and Policy Implications

This keynote presentation will re-examine the key findings and recommendations from Neurons to Neighborhoods in light of policy and research developments in the intervening 12 years. What endures? What has changed? What can we now say even more firmly? What needs major revising?

Three themes will guide this discussion:

(1) the centrality of the stress response system and the “biology of misfortune” to human development,”

(2) relationships with parents/caregivers/teachers as the active ingredient of environmental influence, and

(3) the importance of taking individual differences into account.