Maternal singing is considered vital to infant well-being. This study focuses on vocal emotion expressions in infant-directed singing among mothers in war conditions. It examines the questions: (a) how traumatic war events and mental health problems are associated with the content and valence of vocal emotion expressions and (b) how these emotion…

Introduction: Although recent research has focused on the effects of maternal eating disorders (EDs) on children, little is known about the effect of maternal EDs on neurobiological outcomes in newborns and infants. This study is the first to investigate neurobehavioural regulation and cognitive development in newborns and infants of mothers with…

Young infants can learn statistical regularities and patterns in sequences of events. Studies have demonstrated a relationship between early sequence learning skills and later development of cognitive and language skills. We investigated the relation between infants' visual response speed to novel event sequences, and their later receptive and…

Little is known about the origins of the pointing gesture. We sought to gain insight into its emergence by investigating individual differences in the pointing of 12-month-old infants in two ways. First, we looked at differences in the communicative and interactional uses of pointing and asked how different hand shapes relate to point frequency,…

We argue that infant meaning-making processes are a central mechanism governing both typical and pathological outcomes. Infants, as open dynamic systems, must constantly garner information to increase their complexity and coherence. They fulfill this demand by making nonverbal "meaning"--affects, movements, representations--about themselves in…

Examines the ability of infants at various age levels between three and nine months to discriminate between their mother and a stranger, and relates such ability to the infants' developmental quotient at age nine months. (Author/MP)

Low-birth-weight infants, who received extra stimulation showed improved development through six months of age. (ST)

Results indicate that (1) babies have better concept of person than object as permanent, but there are important individual differences, (2) rate of person permanence development is related to infant-mother attachment, and (3) rate of person permanence development affects object permanence development. (MH)

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…

Tests the hypothesis that appropriately timed stimulation provided to preterm infants would aid self-regulating and lead to quiet sleep. It was expected that effects of self-regulation would be evident in infant development interaction and performance. Stimulation consisted of a gentle horizontal movement and a heartbeat sound presented on…

Studies the effects of mothers' presence and absence on two infants from birth to two years. (AJ)

The most impressive class difference in one-year-old infants revealed by this study was that lower-class infants vocalized considerably less in the playroom than did middle-class infants. (Authors)

Presented are practical ideas parents can use to prevent and manage excessive crying during their infant's first year. Designed to foster the development of children's physical and emotional independence, the ideas discussed concern (1) the changing functions of crying throughout the infant's first year, (2) causes of crying, (3) the intellectual…

Investigated development of face-to-face communication in infants between 1 and 14 weeks old and their mothers. Found a curvilinear development of early face-to-face communication, with increases occurring between weeks 4 and 9. When placed on a sofa, infants' face-to-face communication was longer than when they were held. Girls spent a longer…