Newborn screening (NBS) is a public health program aimed at identifying treatable conditions in presymptomatic newborns to avoid premature mortality, morbidity, and disabilities. Currently, every newborn in the Unites States is screened for at least 29 conditions where evidence suggests that early detection is possible and beneficial. With new or…

Increasing attention has been devoted to the maturation of sensory processing in the first year of life. While the development of cortical visual function has been thoroughly studied, much less information is available on auditory processing and its early disorders. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the assessment techniques for…

The neurosurgical goal when treating children with spina bifida (predominantly myelomeningocele) is to maintain stable neurological functioning throughout the patient's life time. Unfortunately, few long-term outcome studies are available to help direct the neurosurgical care of a child born with myelomeningocele and often treatment relies more…

In glutaric aciduria type I, an autosomal recessive disease of mitochondrial lysine, hydroxylysine and tryptophan catabolism, striatal lesions are characteristically induced by acute encephalopathic crises during a finite period of brain development (age 3-36 months). The frequency of striatal injury is significantly less in patients diagnosed as…

In an ideal world, each neonate should have a comprehensive neurological examination but in practice this is often difficult. In this review we will describe what a routine neurological evaluation in the full-term neonate should consist of and how the Dubowitz examination is performed. The examination has been used for over 20 years and can be…

This review provides an overview and definition of the concept of neurobehavior in human development. Two neurobehavioral assessments used by the authors in current fetal and infant research are discussed: the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Assessment Scale and the Fetal Neurobehavior Coding System. This review will present how the two assessments…

Summarized in this book are conference presentations focusing on new approaches to developmental screening of infants and strategies for early intervention with children at-risk. Summaries concerning assessment describe characteristics of an "optimality scale" for neurological assessment; a five-step neurological assessment for…

The Assessment of Preterm Infants' Behavior (APIB) is a newborn neurobehavioral assessment appropriate for preterm, at risk, and full-term newborns, from birth to 1 month after expected due date. The APIB is based in ethological--evolutionary thought and focuses on the assessment of mutually interacting behavioral subsystems in simultaneous…

The book offers 14 papers presented at two conferences on assessment and intervention with handicapped infants, sponsored by the Western States Technical Assistance Resource. Titles and authors include: "Neonatal Diagnosis of the Neurologically Handicapped" (M. Coleman); "Principles of Infant Assessment" (J. Swanson); "Focus on the Parent-Infant…