This article describes how the author's infant son enthusiastically played with buttons from the age of 5 months to his first birthday. The article details his play routines and how they changed over time. It draws on recent neurological research about how the brain grows to argue that this play provided the foundation for her son's cognitive and…

Reviews significant recent research and information related to the beginning period of human life, and specifically discusses the developing fetus and infant, and the surrounding environment in which the infant is born and reared. Suggestions for prevention of mental-health problems are offered. (Author/DB)

High and low SES mothers of one- and three-year-old children (N=104) were interviewed. Results showed that low SES mothers believed that infants acquire basic cognitive skills later and that the introduction of cognitively stimulating activities should occur later than did high SES mothers. (JMB)

Reports on day-care and preschool programs in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, describing infant-toddler care, preschool programs, research projects, parent involvement, and future trends. (DB)

Interaction during feeding sessions between preterm infants (N=21) and their mothers and interaction between full-term infants (N=22) and their mothers were compared. Mothers and babies were from a low-income, inner-city population. (Author/MP)

Presents evidence that the supposed paradox in which infants find abstract patterns in speech-like stimuli whereas even some preschoolers struggle to find abstract syntactic patterns within meaningful language is no paradox. Asserts that all research evidence shows that young children's syntactic constructions become abstract in a piecemeal…

Asserts that the posited paradox between infancy and toddlerhood language was not eliminated by Tomasello and Akhtar's appeal to infants' robust statistical learning abilities. Maintains that scrutiny of their studies supports the resolution that abstracting linguistic form is easy for infants and that toddlers find it difficult to integrate…

Examined data from 408 pairs of identical, same-sex fraternal twins at 14, 20, and 24 months to assess cognitive development and to identify genetic and environmental influences on phenotypic similarity. Found various patterns of development for separate constructs, for females versus males on each construct, and for individuals across constructs.…

A study of 177 low-income children (ages 3-30 months) investigated the relationship among neglect, failure to thrive (FTT), and cognitive functioning. The cognitive performance of children who had been neglected and were FTT was significantly below that of children who had only one of the variables and typical children. (Author/CR)

Interviews with 16 Taiwanese mothers of babies with Down syndrome found the mothers believed cognitive development was the most important benefit from parent-child interaction. Compared to other mothers, they placed relatively more emphasis on cognitive and physical benefits and outcomes of parent-child interactions than on social and academic…

Results indicated a fairly consistent relationship between Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME) scores and children's developmental status in spite of the fact that there were some ethnic and social status differences in the relationship. Measures of specific aspects of the child's home environment were more strongly related to…

Assessed the intelligence, attachment security, and dependency of 30 18-month-olds. Half of the infants' mothers were employed full time and half were nonemployed mothers. Studied were factors in mothers' lives such as stress, marital relationship, social contacts, and supports. Results suggest that different models to predict infant outcome in…

Explores cognitive development in early childhood education and examines four kinds of prevailing misconceptions in the light of recent evidence: (1) infants and very young children are limited to sensorimotor cognition; (2) young children's cognition is animistic; (3) young children's thought is egocentric; and (4) young children can think only…