This article examines the descriptive influences of reading and learning disorders on personality development. It discusses the effects of biologic vulnerabilities and environmental interaction, the variant patterns of defense and symptom development at various life stages, and evidence that early development failures are key elements in later…

The concept of autonomous identity, derived from Piaget's theory of personality, is distinguished from other applications of the term "autonomy" in psychological theory. Introductory comments suggest that both biological and mental development express autonomy in the same two senses: as self-regulating and progressively self-liberating.…

Recent data suggest that genes influence three domains of great importance to family researchers: (1) developmental outcomes; (2) family variables that are thought to influence those outcomes; and (3) covariance between measures of family process and developmental outcomes. Influence of genes on variances and covariances challenges current…

The first in a series of related reports (see TM 000 775), this paper attempts to define a concept of psychosocial maturity which would be appropriate as a comprehensive educational goal. Biological, sociological, psychological and temporal formulations of maturity are discussed and compared. Am interdisciplinary model of maturity is evolved which…