Continuum concept

According to Liedloff, in order to achieve this level of development, young humans (especially babies) require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution by natural selection.

For infants, the experiences include: Liedloff suggests that when certain evolutionary expectations are not met as infants and toddlers, compensation for these needs will be sought, by alternate means, throughout life, resulting in many forms of mental and social disorders.

She also argues that these expectations are largely distorted, neglected, and/or not properly met in civilized cultures which have removed themselves from the natural evolutionary process, resulting in the aforementioned abnormal psychological and social conditions.

Liedloff's recommendations fit in more generally with evolutionary psychology, attachment theory, and the philosophy known as the Paleolithic lifestyle: optimizing well-being by living more like our hunter-gatherer ancestors, who Liedloff refers to as "evolved" humans, since their lifeways developed through natural selection by living in the wild.

The continuum concept featured on television in the UK in the 2007 Channel 4 series Bringing Up Baby.