Addressing practical issues rarely covered in methods texts, this user-friendly, jargon-free book helps students and beginning researchers plan infant and child development studies and get them done. The author provides step-by-step guidance for getting involved in a developmental laboratory and crafting effective research questions and proposals.…

Comments on a study by Schacter and others which proposes that insights into why infants make the AB error can be gained by examining the errors of brain-damaged adults on similar tasks. (The B in AB has a line over it in the title and in the article meaning "A not B.") (PCB)

Two studies are presented that document the spontaneous development by normal infants of nonverbal gestures to symbolically represent objects, needs, states, and qualities. These gestures are shown to be a typical phenomenon of early development and to function in ways similar to early verbal symbols. (PCB)

Findings indicate that infants can detect regularity in spatiotemporal series; will develop expectancies for events in the series; and will act on the basis of those expectancies even when their actions have no effect on the stimulus events. (PCB)

Two experiments using the habituation-dishabituation paradigm examined infants' ability to form and retrieve a basic-level category. Results indicated that infants categorized when tested immediately and after a five-minute delay. (PCB)

This anthology contains 19 articles selected from the "Zero To Three Bulletin" from 1984 through the spring of 1992 and organized into five sections. The section on relationships in infant/toddler child care includes: "Infants in Day Care: Reflections on Experiences, Expectations, and Relationships," by J. H. Pawl; and…

A comparison of vocal development in deaf and hearing infants indicates that well-formed syllable production is established in the first 10 months of life by hearing infants but not by deaf infants, suggesting that audition plays an important role in vocal development. (PCB)

Tested the generalizability of the specificity model of environmental action to the domain of mastery motivation in infants. Found that the specificity model successfully predicted that aspects of the environment uniquely related to dimensions of mastery motivation, and that infant sex and temperament mediated the relation of environment to…

Actual and theoretical cases are presented in which the Battelle Developmental Inventory was used in infant assessment. Age-related discontinuities reveal that, for children whose chronological age abuts one of the cut-off points between age categories, radically different summary scores can be obtained from one day to the next despite identical…

This study explored stability in cognitive and motivational functioning of children from 3 months old to 3.5 years old, as well as stability in the quality of care provided by parents during this time. The purpose was to determine the locus of continuity over time--whether it is within the child or the caregiving environment. A total of 37…

Ability of 26 newborns to imitate facial expressions was examined. When infants observed emotional facial expressions, they did not show imitative matching of the modeled expressions. However, when tongue protrusion was modeled, infants did produce the modeled gesture. (PCB)

Localization acuity was examined by determining the smallest sound shift off midline and along the horizontal axis that infants 6-18 months could reliably discriminate. As their age increased, infants demonstrated a finer partitioning of auditory space along the horizontal axis. (PCB)

More children than ever are in care centers, and child care experiences of infants and toddlers are believed to have a powerful and lasting impact on children's well-being. A team of researchers from the FPG Child Development Institute created a study to examine the effects that transitions have on children's behavior and observable stress when…

To assess changes in visual-motor function with age, 20 visually impaired infants and toddlers were followed, longitudinally, with the Bayley Mental Scale of Infant Development (BMSID). The BMSID was seen to be an appropriate tool for evaluating such children and especially effective as part of a longitudinal process. (Author/DB)

Eighty at-risk infants were administered the Mental and Motor Scales of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 6 and 12 months of age. Test-retest reliability scores of .71 on the Mental Scale and .69 on the Motor Scale were obtained. (Author/JDD)