Research on the contribution of low birthweight, perinatal problems, congenital disorders, and mental retardation to child abuse is reviewed. Analysis indicates handicapping conditions are not major causal factors, while longitudinal research suggest that minor deviations in child behavior rather than major handicaps are related to the occurence…

Reviewed are the causes of oxygenation deprivation during the birth process, effects on the brain, clinical manifestations, developmental consequences in terms of cognitive and motor deficits, and implications for educators. (JDD)

Language abilities in two twin pairs, in which one twin suffered perinatal left hemisphere brain injury, were studied from the age of 23-30 months to 41-46 months. Twins performed similarly on tests of mental development, picture vocabulary, and receptive language, but brain-injured twins' scores were lower than controls' on expressive language.…

Motor skills were compared in two samples of children born biologically at risk: 19 children who had transient neurologic signs in infancy but were considered "normal" at two years, and 42 children who appeared neurologically normal throughout early childhood. At 4:6 years, the groups differed only on the measure of pencil prehension.…

Children (N=567) in two cohorts were stratified by birthweight into groups of very low birthweight, low birthweight, and normal birthweight. Children were then tracked into the school system to determine educational achievement as an outcome measure. The distribution of handicaps is analyzed, and estimated relative risk ratios are presented.…

Findings of a study of 32 infants attending a neonatal intensive care unit follow-up clinic included mechanically ventilated infants were more irritable than nonventilated infants; infants from lower income families were fussier than infants from higher income families; 5-minute Apgar scores were more predictive of infants' success on a visual…

Seven full-term infants with severe encephalopathy following perinatal asphyxia were followed longitudinally to two years of age to determine health and developmental outcome and to investigate mother-infant interaction patterns over time. Six infants demonstrated delayed development; five were diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Mother-infant…

"Early Partners" and "Partners for Learning" is a 2-part curriculum to support parent-child interactions in the first 36 months of a premature, low birthweight child's life. Analysis showed that the rate of delivering the curriculum in the child development center and the home added significantly to the prediction of 36-month…