Studies 45 low-medical-risk preterm infants and 23 healthy term neonates, revealing that preterms are more wakeful but not more visually responsive than full-term infants. Intrameasure correlations suggest that the organization of wakefulness and visual responsiveness is different in full-term neonates and in preterms at expected date of birth.…

Looking beyond the overall effectiveness of sensory stimulation, this study aimed to identify specific aspects of infant behavior most responsive to early stimulation. Subjects were 65 premature infants with a birth weight of less than 5 pounds, 8 ounces and a gestational age under 37 weeks. Experimental group members had completed a multimodal…

Outcomes of a follow-up, preventive care program based on a self-regulation model of neonate and parent behavior were studied in a controlled experiment. Subjects included a preterm control group, preterm intervention group, and full-term control group, with each group consisting of 27 infants. The assessment, which used the Brazelton Neonatal…

Irritability levels and activity reactivity to aversive tactile stimuli were compared for 144 full-term neonates and 191 preterm infants. Irritability ratings increased across the five trials both during and post stimulation for full-term females and males and for preterm females, but not for preterm males. Activity ratings decreased across trials…

Ten preterm infants in a neonatal intensive care unit were provided with tactile-kinesthetic stimulation. Following treatment, the infants' weight gains and performance on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale significantly increased, compared to 10 control-group infants, also preterm. The groups showed no differences on length of hospital…