Brazelton, T. Berry (Thomas Berry Brazelton Jr.), 1918–2018, American pediatrician and author, b. Waco, Tex., grad. Princeton, 1940, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia 1943. Brazelton was especially interested in the psychological and behavorial development of children, and developed tools for observing how a baby's temperament shapes the way parents respond to it. After training at Massachusetts General and Boston Children's hospitals, he opened a pediatric practice in Cambridge, Mass., in 1950 and began teaching at Harvard in 1953, becoming a professor there in 1969 (emeritus from 1988). In 1972 he established a pediatric training and research center at Boston Children's Hospital. In 1973 he developed the neonatal behavioral assessment scale, and in 1992 he founded a clinical program, Touchpoints, which is designed to foster a child's development through support to parents and other caregivers during disruptive developmental spurts and regressions. In 1988 he became professor of psychiatry and human development at Brown. Brazelton wrote more than 30 books on pediatrics, child development, and parenting, including Infants and Mothers (1969), Toddlers and Parents (1974), and The Earliest Relationship (1990, with Bertrand G. Cramer). He also hosted an Emmy-winning television show, What Every Baby Knows (1984–95).
See his memoir, Learning to Listen (2013).
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