Essentials Of Lifespan Development - 2026 Release

New Canadian co-author. Dr. Susan Chuang is a new co-author of Santrock Essentials of Life-span Development. Susan is a Full Professor at the University of Guelph, Ontario. To date, Susan has taught around 11,000 undergraduate students, primarily teaching the Human Development course in person and online. Her first line of research includes parenting, fathering, parent-child relationships, child and adolescent development, and school readiness in various sociocultural contexts.

Expanded Canadian context. Building upon its strong commitment to Canadian content, the new edition includes even more Canadian context for students. This is achieved through a strong emphasis on diversity, Indigenous content, inclusion of Canadian examples and locations, Canadian research and statistics, and coverage of current events and their effects on development.

Indigenous content integrated throughout. More Indigenous content has been integrated throughout the Second Canadian edition. Examples include a new Careers in Lifespan Development box featuring the co-chair of the National Aboriginal Council of Midwives in Chapter 2, and an enhanced focus on Indigenous youth in Chapter 8.

Updated statistics and research. The Second Canadian edition has been thoroughly updated to include the latest Canadian research and statistics. Every chapter in the new edition has been updated, ensuring relevancy for students.

New Connect Experience. Significant improvements to the instructor workflows in Connect have been made, including the addition of new features designed to make managing your course even easier. New features include the ability to add co-instructors to a section, a new Assignments tab, a redesigned section dashboard, optimizations for mobile use, and improved accessibility.

Essential coverage. Santrock offers essential coverage that can be covered in one semester. There are 13 chapters, which are organized chronologically and cover all periods of the human life span, from prenatal through late adulthood and death.

Canadian focused. Essentials of Life-span Development offers robust Canadian content with a strong focus on issues that are important to Canadians. In addition to Canadian research and statistics, Santrock also includes Indigenous content, an emphasis on diversity, and examples from across Canada.

Quest: Journey through the Life Span. Available in Connect, this experiential learning game provides students with opportunities to apply content from their human development curriculum to real-life scenarios. Students play unique characters of various ages who make decisions by applying key concepts and theories for each age as they negotiate events in an array of authentic environments. Additionally, students are exposed to different cultures and the intersections of biological, cognitive, and socioemotional processes by analyzing real-world behaviours and environments. Also assignable in Connect are auto-graded, follow-up questions to reach a higher level of critical thinking.

Milestones video module. Available in Connect, the McGraw Hill Milestones video series is a powerful tool that allows students to experience life as it unfolds, from infancy to adolescence and beyond. This groundbreaking, longitudinal video series tracks the development of real children as they progress through the early stages of physical, social, and emotional development in their first few weeks, months, and years of life. The Milestones video series also includes videos and interviews with adolescents and adults to reflect development through the entire lifespan.

SmartBook 2.0. Within Connect, students have access to SmartBook, an adaptive learning and reading tool that personalizes content to each student's unique needs. Because SmartBook creates the ideal study path for each student, every minute they spend studying is the most effective minute possible. SmartBook highlights the key topics students should focus on, and supplies links to additional learning materials like slideshows, videos and more so they can enhance their understanding of key learning objectives.