Corinne Crandell has earned a B.S. degree from the University at Albany and an M.S. degree from the State University of New York at Oneonta in counseling and psychology. Corinne has completed additional graduate studies in reading, special education, and learning disabilities. Corinne has had a variety of instructional experiences at the community college level teaching psychology classes for many years, has been a college counselor, has co-authored developmental psychology study guides, instructors manuals, and computerized study guides and developed the first distance learning course in developmental psychology for the SUNY Learning Network, offered over the Internet since 1997. She also supervised student interns in Broome Community Colleges human services program at nearly 40 social service agencies. For 5 years she taught in a middle school and worked with children with learning disabilities in grades 4 through 8. Additionally, she was the coordinator of the gifted and talented program for a private school district with 12 schools. Corinne has coached and judged in the regional Odyssey of the Mind program, was a board member for 5 years at our local Association for Retarded Citizens, and has taught confirmation classes to high school students for the past ten years. As a parent and a stepparent of a blended family, we bring to this text a wealth of knowledge and understanding about the issues facing single parents, stepfamilies, blended families, and families with children with special needs. Becky, now 35 and our daughter/ stepdaughter with Down syndrome, has enriched our lives in countless ways. Her brother Jim has become a special education teacher, her sister Colleen has become a caring physician, and her younger brother Patrick is a recent college graduate who is considerate of people with differences. Thus, unlike other human development texts, some information about the development of differently-abled children is included in this text along with the development of "typical" children.
