What are the social consequences of the recent expansion of newborn screening in the United States? The adoption of new screening technologies has generated diagnostic uncertainty about the nature of screening targets, making it unclear not only whether a newborn will develop a disease but also what the condition actually is. Based on observations…

Holistic face processing was investigated in newborns, 3-month-old infants, and adults through a modified version of the composite face paradigm and the recording of eye movements. After familiarization to the top portion of a face, participants (N = 70) were shown 2 aligned or misaligned faces, 1 of which comprised the familiar top part. In the…

As part of efforts throughout China to improve the outcomes of individuals with disabilities, the Shanghai government has launched a campaign to screen at least 95 percent of newborns. To assist in meeting this goal, the Ages & Stages Questionnaires (ASQ), Third Edition, was translated into Chinese and the feasibility of a screening system…

Aim: Children born very preterm are at risk for impaired motor performance ranging from cerebral palsy (CP) to milder abnormalities, such as developmental coordination disorder. White matter abnormalities (WMA) at term have been associated with CP in very preterm children; however, little is known about the impact of WMA on the range of motor…

We study how advances in scientific knowledge affect the evolution of disparities in health. Our focus is the 1964 Surgeon General Report on Smoking and Health--the first widely publicized report of the negative effects of smoking on health. Using an historical dataset that includes the smoking habits of pregnant women 1959-1966, we find that…

Smoking during pregnancy is a persistent public health problem that has been linked to later adverse outcomes. The neonatal period--the first month of life--carries substantial developmental change in regulatory skills and is the period when tobacco metabolites are cleared physiologically. Studies to date mostly have used cross-sectional designs…

Objective: To examine the amount, timing and causes/correlates of infant mortality among newborns with Down syndrome. Methods: Using the Tennessee Department of Health Birth, Hospital Discharge and Death records, infants were identified who were born with Down syndrome from 1990 to 2006. Those who died during the first year were separated into…

Aim: To study the aetiology of intellectual disability in patients presenting to hospital and the diagnostic yield of a standardized examination. Method: Over a 1-year period, the first three children presenting to the paediatric outpatients department (OPD) on 2 selected weekdays with developmental delay, suspected intellectual disability, 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…

Competency based medical education involves assessing physicians-in-training in multiple roles. Training programs are challenged by the need to introduce appropriate yet feasible assessment methods. We therefore examined the utility of a structured oral examination (SOE) in the assessment of the 7 CanMEDS roles (Medical Expert, Communicator,…

Nurses require ongoing opportunities to expand knowledge and skills; this expansion of knowledge and skills is one aspect of continued competence. One method that may be used to maintain and refine knowledge and skills is participation in continuing education activities. However, there has been little inquiry into creative strategies used in…

We previously reported that foetal valproate exposure impairs intelligence quotient. In this follow-up investigation, we examined dose-related effects of foetal antiepileptic drug exposure on verbal and non-verbal cognitive measures. This investigation is an ongoing prospective observational multi-centre study in the USA and UK, which has enrolled…

In the last decade, China began developing early intervention services for very young children with hearing loss, and their families. This article presents a broad description of some of these programs, including the national rehabilitation networks for speech and hearing training, increased attention on the development of professionals, the…

Five experiments examined 79 newborns' ability to discriminate and categorize a spatial relation, defined by the left-right spatial position of a blinking object-target with respect to a vertical landmark-bar. Three-day-old infants discriminated the up versus low position of an object located on the same side of the landmark-bar (Experiment 1) and…

The present study was aimed at exploring newborns' ability to recognize configural changes within real face images by testing newborns' sensitivity to the Thatcher illusion. Using the habituation procedure, newborns' ability to discriminate between an unaltered face image and the same face with the eyes and the mouth 180 degrees rotated (i.e.…