With a PhD in Child Development at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center you will have focused typically on the study of social-emotional development as the underlying foundation for all other areas of development including physical, cognitive, motor, and language.You will typically have engaged in an interdisciplinary field of study based on the assumption that development takes place across the lifespan in the context of the family, community, and public policy.You will have gained knowledge in some of the following areas crucial to development: Knowledge of the development (physical, psychological, emotional, social) of infants, toddlers, preschoolers, school-aged children, adolescents, and adults, knowledge of family violence and child maltreatment, atypical development, knowledge of dating, marriage, parenting and parent-child and peer relationships and family.