Infants are curious learners who drive their own cognitive development by imposing structure on their learning environment as they explore. Understanding the mechanisms by which infants structure their own learning is therefore critical to our understanding of development. Here we propose an explicit mechanism for intrinsically motivated…

This paper offers an overview of research on infants' early behavior toward televised images, followed by an account of the development of "representational competence" with video. Several aspects of representation are involved in young children's understanding and use of video. From a very young age, children form mental representations of the…

Objective: To examine prospectively the emergence of behavioral signs of autism in the first years of life in infants at low and high risk for autism. Method: A prospective longitudinal design was used to compare 25 infants later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with 25 gender-matched low-risk children later determined to have…

A research project was aimed at measuring the relationship between infant vocalizations and linguistic development and determining the feasibility of using infant vocalizations as a predictor of later psychological and intellectual status. However, a method was needed to analyze the vocalizations of infants. This report describes a method used to…

A MAIN PROBLEM ARISING IN THE STUDY OF CATEGORIZING BEHAVIOR IN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN BY MEANS OF SORTING PROCEDURES WAS THAT PERFORMANCE APPEARED TO BE VERY MUCH A FUNCTION OF THE CHILD'S COMPREHENSION OF THE PARTICULAR VERBAL INSTRUCTIONS EMPLOYED BY THE EXPERIMENTER IN PRESENTING THE TASK. THE SPECIFIC AIMS OF THE FIRST STUDY WERE TO INVESTIGATE…

Calls for a process-oriented approach to study of categorization in infancy. Maintains that further understanding of infant categorization and its changes with development requires a more direct assessment of infants' category formation. Argues that two research directions will enhance understanding of categorization: (1) contextual variations on…

Findings from a study of 109 Israeli day-care providers suggest that they classify, label, and evaluate infant behavior in the Strange Situation procedure much like attachment theorists do. The relatively independent infants were viewed most positively and most providers preferred to interact with these infants. (SLD)

This research bulletin includes reports of research (on children) in progress or recently completed from March through August, 1971. Each entry includes information concerning the investigator, purpose, subjects, methods, duration, cooperating groups, and findings (if available). The reports are listed under several topical headings: (1) long-term…