To document movement patterns and to examine developmental interrelationships, the ontogeny of rooting, lip, lateral tongue, mouth opening, biting, and Babkin reflexes and the development of emerging chewing behaviors were observed in two normal infants over a period from 1 week to 35 weeks of age. (Author/RH)

Examined consistency in behavioral state organization for 30 fetuses and neonates. Assessed heart rate pattern and presence or absence of eye and gross body movements during sleep, finding quiet sleep (QS), active sleep (AS), and indeterminate states in nearly identical proportions. Duration of enclosed QS epochs provided only stable measure of…

Compared the postural responsiveness of seven-, eight-, and nine-month-old infants. Results indicated greater use of optic flow for postural control after a self-produced locomotor experience. Infants with endogenous (creeping) or artificial (walker) self-produced locomotor experience responded to portions of the optic flow field, whereas…

Presents a developmental study of changes in infant attachment behaviors. Five groups of female infants, 8, 11, 14, 19, and 24 months of age, were observed during varying types of separation experiences. Changes in proximity behaviors and contact behaviors were analyzed. (BD)

This study examined the development of imitation under naturalistic conditions. Participating were 320 parents, who provided diary records of imitation by their 12-, 15-, and 18-month-old infants over a 7-day period. Approximately half of the infants were first-borns and half had older siblings. The findings indicated that infants of all ages…

Explores current theories of emotional development in order to identify the assumptions that could explain the strong antagonism toward early nonbasic emotions. Draws on the contrasting and polarity of viewpoints to examine the logical implications of these viewpoints for the very possibility of early nonbasic emotions and their reciprocal…

This interim report is part of a longitudinal study of developmental behavior designed to determine whether infants from culturally disadvantaged homes have different developmental patterns than infants from advantaged homes. Twenty six culturally disadvantaged infants were individually evaluated on the Bayley Scale of Infant Mental and Motor…

Thirteen infants were presented with a moving object under two lighting conditions to investigate the role of vision in early reaching. Infants were tested twice, at 5 and 7.5 months of age. The results suggest that proprioceptive feedback and sight of the target allowed for successful reaching with limited visual information, even in relatively…

Used an event-based approach to study the nature of coordination in 3- and 6-month olds during interaction with their caregivers. Found that infants coordinated their vocalizations and facial actions more than expected by chance. When two communicative events were temporally associated across modalities, one event tended to be embedded within the…

This demonstration study examines the affective reactions of infants when they imitate or fail to imitate play behavior modeled by an adult. Subjects were twenty-four 18-month-old and twenty-four 24-month-old male and female infants. Each infant visited the laboratory twice with an inter-session interval of 48 hours. At each session, the infant…

Fixation time, smiling, vocalization, and fret/cry were recorded to obtain a complete picture of infants' responses to facial stimuli over the first year of life. Four stimuli were presented to 120 infants. Results of fixation data indicate that (1) there is a marked decrease in fixation toward facial stimuli within the first year, (2) at all ages…