Martin Herbert has written an excellent companion to his earlier book, Typical and Atypical Development: From Conception to Adolescence (Reference HerbertHerbert, 2002). The first book dealt with typical behaviour, cognition and emotional development. This book discusses a wide variety of developmental problems and disorders, and provides an approach to prevention and treatment as well as training issues. The approach taken is one of considering the tasks that confront individuals as they grow through childhood, using competence and achievement as the core to understanding.

The first 14 chapters are organised into five parts relating to the stages of childhood and adolescence; the various disorders are discussed in an organised format, repeated for each. These chapters give a clear description of the developmental problems presented at each stage; they are comprehensive, but describe the conditions efficiently and succinctly and provide easy reading. They are an excellent overview of a broad spectrum of disorders, placed in a developmental framework that makes them easy to understand and remember - in my view, a good way for students and practitioners to assimilate a multiplicity of facts painlessly.

Chapter 15 describes the work needed to plan treatment and training programmes, as well as care plans. This chapter is useful to current practitioners as it puts the process of formulation into a very helpful framework. Professor Herbert is one of the few authors who articulate the need for ‘intuition, insight, imagination and empathetic communication’. It is good to see an argument that practice should have a sound base in tested theory but can be greatly enriched by the use of clinical skills which are perhaps more instinctive than scientific. There is also an acknowledgement that there is a need to be effective in influencing policy-making, which is often not part of a clinician's explicit role. The chapter describes approaches to assessment and formulation and sets these out clearly in terms of questions to guide the process.

The last chapter provides a guide to possible resources that may help families. Subtitled ‘How and where to find help’, it sets out the need for epidemiological information and describes the sources of care that are available. A useful description of commonly provided services is given. This is followed by ‘Practice approaches’, which comments on the differences in approach between the medical and psychological professions. Criticisms of the medical approach in relation to taxonomy are fairly stated, but rather brief in analysis. The psychological practice is limited to a list of therapies that can be offered by those with the relevant training, and a description of the attributes of a collaborative approach to clients. In my view, this section could have been omitted as it draws an unnecessary distinction between the professions. The appendix is full of useful resources and information and enhances the usefulness of the book.

Overall, I think that this book should fill an important place in the shelves of practitioners of many different disciplines. My copy is on its way to becoming well used.