The purpose of this study was to longitudinally examine the development of anticipatory visual search and to find out the effects of preceding experiences upon the search during the second year of life. The sample consisted of 18 Japanese firstborn nonretarded children from middle-class families who were individually tested at 11, 12, 14, 16, 22,…

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…

This study examined how change occurs in infant gestural communication. Five infants were videotaped once a week from 10 to 12 months and twice a week from 12 to 15 months during play sessions with their mothers in a laboratory playroom. These sessions consisted of 10 minutes of a structured play context in which infants were seated at a table at…

Provides further support for the contention held by Thomas, Chess, and Korn (1982) that the concept of difficult temperament is not totally a construction of the parents. (MP)

The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) underwent a generalizability study examining the consistency and stability of scores. Canonical correlation and principal components factor analysis indicated that the organization of environment changes over the first two years of life, and the amount--not type--of stimulation is…

Presents a mathematical model of the development of reaching behavior in infants, along with the results of two experiments that showed that infant movements could be decomposed into the underlying submovements using a principled method; and the angular error in infant reaches matches the form and magnitude of error assumed by the model. (MDM)

The effects of the familiarity of setting and partner on the social behavior of infants was studied. Subjects were 22 infants 6-18 months old. Eleven of the infants were in a day care center; the remainder were cared for at home. In the first portion of the study, the day care infants were observed interacting with each other in the nursery…

Sequences of mastery behavior were analyzed in a sample of 67 infants 6 to 12 months old. Authors computed (a) frequencies of six categories of mastery behavior, transitional probabilities, and z scores for each behavior change, and (b) transitions from a mastery behavior to positive affect. Changes in frequencies and similarity in organization…

The intellectual development and behavior of U.S. citizen infants with undocumented alien parents were compared with infants of documented alien parents or Hispanic American parents. Demographic and environmental variables were equivalent for both groups. Infants of undocumented parents scored significantly lower on the Bayley mental and…

Neonates born without complications to healthy mothers at 14,000 feet or at 490 feet above sea level were evaluated at 24-36- and 48-60-hours-of-life. In comparison with low-altitude infants, high-altitude infants were significantly lighter, shorter, had a smaller arm circumference, and presented more signs of behavioral immaturity in interactive…

Ninety-two clinically normal infants (48 male, 44 female) were tested at 2 and 90 days of age to examine the continuity of newborn behavior through early infancy across a broad range of behaviors. (MP)

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…

Visual behavior of infants was assessed with multiple discrimination tasks week to week from four to seven months of age. Task to task reliability was low, but attentional averages from week to week were reliable. Generally, infants with shorter fixations showed more novelty preferences, and infants' shift rate improved with age. (SKC)

Compared arousal during peekaboo game of low birthweight infants with higher or lower perinatal risk to that of healthy full-term infants. Found that low birthweight babies showed less positive arousal, more negative arousal, and three mixtures of behavioral cues than full-term babies, who showed strong positive and negative responses. Perinatal…