Research has documented elevated experiences of racial discrimination among African American families, and its adverse impacts on their psychological well-being. However, most studies have investigated the experiences of and consequences for older children and adults. The goal of the current study was to examine the relations among mothers'…

Executive control (EC) develops rapidly during the preschool years and is central to academic achievement and functional outcome. Although children with perinatal adversity are at known risk for EC impairments, little is known about the underlying nature of these impairments or the mechanisms that contribute to their development over time. Drawing…

Neuroscientists have long believed that there are sensitive periods in development during which the effects of experience play a critical role. And developmental psychologists have argued for the importance of early experience in the first years of life as being critical for brain and behavioral development. Most of the neuroscience research…

Background: Maternal depression is known to be associated with impairments in child cognitive development, although the effect of timing of exposure to maternal depression is unclear. Methods: Data collected for the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a longitudinal study beginning in pregnancy, included self-report measures of…

Objective: No previous longitudinal study has examined the impact of comorbid maternal personality disorder (PD) and depression on child development. We set out to examine whether maternal PD and depression assessed at 2 months post partum would be independently associated with adverse developmental outcomes at 18 months of age. Method: Women were…

Fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG) is the only non-invasive method for investigating evoked brain responses and spontaneous brain activity generated by the fetus "in utero". Fetal auditory as well as visual-evoked fields have been successfully recorded in basic stimulus-response studies. Moreover, paradigms investigating precursors for cognitive…

To study the effects of perinatal HIV-1 infection and early institutional rearing on the physical and cognitive development of children, 64 Ukrainian uninfected and HIV-infected institutionalized and family-reared children were examined (mean age = 50.9 months). Both HIV infection and institutional care were related to delays in physical and…

The developing brain has the capacity for a great deal of plasticity. A number of investigators have demonstrated that intellectual and language skills may be in the normal range in children following unilateral perinatal stroke. Questions have been raised, however, about whether these skills can be maintained at the same level as the brain…

Reviewed are the causes of oxygenation deprivation during the birth process, effects on the brain, clinical manifestations, developmental consequences in terms of cognitive and motor deficits, and implications for educators. (JDD)

Perinatal asphyxia occurs in approximately 1-6 per 1000 live full-term births. Different patterns of brain damage can result, though the relation of these patterns to long-term cognitive-behavioural outcome remains under investigation. The hippocampus is one brain region that can be damaged (typically not in isolation), and this site of damage has…

A review of current research on outcomes of children born premature and low birth weight provides a detailed summary of the long-term performance in the areas of cognition, motor, behavior, and language performance. Three tables provide comparative data for major studies concerned with developmental outcomes of pre-term children for cognition,…

This study compared the linguistic, cognitive, and behavioral performance at 6-8 years of age of eight children born preterm and low birth weight (3-5 pounds) with that of 12 full-term peers. Quantitative analyses of performance profiles for all the children are provided. Findings found no significant differences between groups in linguistic,…

This paper presents the results of a comparative analysis between full term typical infants and those born micropremature in the developmental construct of mastery motivation. The sample consisted of 10 micropremature infants with developmental levels within the normal limits and 10 full term 9- to 12-month-olds (adjusted for prematurity) matched…

A study examined rates of labor induction using pitocin in 41 boys with autism and 25 matched controls with either typical development or mental retardation. There were no differences in pitocin induction rates as a function of either diagnostic group (autism vs. control) or IQ level (average vs. subaverage range). (Contains references.)…

In an effort to look at factors moderating the negative effects of preterm low birthweight and perinatal illness, the study followed up (at 7 and 12 months of age) 50 preterm infants whose cumulative morbidity score was greater than 100 and/or who had a life threatening complication. Home visits provided ratings of maternal sensitivity, the…