Atypical gaze processing has been reported in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Here we explored how infants at risk for ASD respond behaviorally to others' direct gaze. We assessed 10-month-olds with a sibling with ASD (high risk group; n = 61) and a control group (n = 18) during interaction with an adult. Eye-tracking revealed less…

As states work to strengthen supports for young children's mental health, often with the goal of reducing the incidence of costly conditions at later ages, they face the question of how to finance new or expanded services. This brief examines states' use of Medicaid as a key source of funding for early childhood mental health (ECMH) services. It…

DC KIDS COUNT tracks indicators of child well-being at the neighborhood and Ward level, so that parents, service providers, advocates and policymakers can see outcomes for children more clearly. The DC KIDS COUNT Data Tool 2.0 allows the user to explore neighborhood-level data interactively. However, because DC is organized politically by its…

It is known that young infants can learn to perform an action that elicits a reinforcer, and that they can visually anticipate a predictable stimulus by looking at its location before it begins. Here, in an investigation of the display of these abilities in tandem, I report that 10-month-olds anticipate a reward stimulus that they generate through…

In young infants, activation or inhibition of body movements on perception of environmental events is important to enable them to act on the world or understand the world. To reveal the development of this ability, we observed movement patterns in all four limbs under the two experimental conditions. Infants assigned to the interaction condition…

Keeping children safe and healthy is one of the main concerns of parents and child care providers. SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is the leading cause of death in infants 1 month to 12 months of age. Over 2,000 infants die from SIDS every year in the United States, and almost 15% of these deaths occur in child care settings. A targeted…

Background: The differential susceptibility (DS) model suggests that temperamentally prone-to-distress infants may exhibit adverse outcomes in negative environments but optimal outcomes in positive environments. This study explored temperament, parenting, and 36-month cognition and behavior in preterm infants using the DS model. We hypothesized…

This issue on fathers was conceived as a rallying cry for all professionals to examine their practices of including fathers in their services. For too long, infant mental health professionals have either ignored fathers' important influences on infants and toddlers or have given lip-service to their importance while allowing the status quo of not…

This article presents an overview of the Healthy Steps for Young Children (Healthy Steps) program at Montefiore Medical Center, in the Bronx, NY. The authors review the theoretical underpinnings of this national program for the promotion of early childhood mental health. The Healthy Steps program at Montefiore is integrated into outpatient…

When speaking to infants, adults typically alter the acoustic properties of their speech in a variety of ways compared with how they speak to other adults; for example, they use higher pitch, increased pitch range, more pitch variability, and slower speech rate. Research shows that these vocal changes happen similarly across industrialized…

Learning in the earliest stage of life--the infancy, toddlerhood and preschool period--is relational and rapid. Child-initiated and adult-mediated conversations, playful interactions and learning through active involvement are integral to young children making sense of their environments and to their development over time. The child's experience…

Twenty-nine infants aged 1;1 and their mothers were videotaped while interacting with toys for 18 minutes. Six experimental stimuli were presented to elicit infant communicative bids in two communicative intent contexts--proto-declarative and proto-imperative. Mothers' verbal responses to infants' gestural and non-gestural communicative bids were…

Background: For the early detection of children who are at risk of communication problems, we need appropriate assessment instruments. Two Dutch-language standardised screening instruments are available: the Dutch version of the Non Speech Test (NNST) and the Dutch version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (N-CDIs). These…

Recent studies indicate the need to investigate the sources of toddlers' understanding of another person's pretense. The present study is a cultural and longitudinal extension of the work of Lillard and Witherington (2004), who claimed that mothers modify their behaviors during pretense and that the some of these behavior modifications help their…

The aim of this article is to investigate the competence of young children staying with their mothers in refuges for abused women as participants in qualitative interviews. Discourse of the verbal and non-verbal actions of seven young children (4-7 years old) was analysed using a theory originally developed to describe infant-mother interaction as…