Defines the emerging role of the newborn developmental specialist as one which provides interdisciplinary leadership, education, mentoring, and system change skills necessary for comprehensive developmental programs and describes the training and experience necessary for this advanced practice position. (Author/CR)

Reviews literature on prevalence, mechanisms of fetal toxicity, effects of exposure, socioeconomic factors, and social-support programs to increase awareness of the effects of prenatal exposure to cocaine. Emphasizes the need for drug education and social-support programs for disadvantaged pregnant women to prevent and control cocaine use. (EMK)

Reviews research on frequently occurring perinatal risk factors, especially the relationship between small-for-gestational age infants and later language and language-related skills. It finds that being too young, too small, or both represent risk factors for language development that increase in that order and are sufficient to warrant language…

This study compared the language skills of low-birth-weight premature infants (N=11), higher birth-weight premature infants (N=14), and full-term infants (N=12) at 22 months corrected chronological age. Results suggest that low-birth-weight premature infants are at greater risk than higher birth-weight premature infants for speech and language…

Outlines the history of and reviews the literature on the care of premature infants. Focuses on the medicalization of birth; early neonatology; the effect of advances in medicine on the survival and safety of neonates; and the importance of early mother-neonate interactions. (BC)

This paper offers six guidelines to facilitate parent-professional partnerships in neonatal intensive care units and early intervention settings. The guidelines emphasize the need to individualize practices to match parent needs; involve parents; support, trust, and respect parents; adopt a strengths-based perspective; understand parents' and…

This article discusses six criteria for justifying universal infant hearing screening, including: significant consequences must result when the disorder is not detected, programs must be available, accessible, and cost-effective, and birth-admission screening must result in an improved outcome. It concludes that universal detection of infant…

Neonatal neurobehavioral assessments describe a newborn's spontaneous behavioural repertoire and observable responses to environmental stimuli. Infant developmental assessments document the range of developmental skills that emerge and develop over the first years of life. This review highlights two neonatal assessments (Einstein Neonatal…

Perceptual discrimination between speech sounds belonging to different phoneme categories is better than that between sounds falling within the same category. This property, known as ''categorical perception,'' is weaker in children affected by dyslexia. Categorical perception develops from the predispositions of newborns for discriminating all…

How do infants identify the psychological actors in their environments? Three groups of 12-month-old infants were tested for their willingness to encode a simple approach behavior as goal-directed as a function of whether it was performed by (1) a human hand, (2) a morphologically unfamiliar green object that interacted with a confederate and…

The phenomenon of neonatal imitation, and the use of mutual imitation by mother and baby in the service of attunement, are considered in relation to psychoanalytic theories of mirroring, imitation and identification. Material from infant observation and from the treatment of two children on the autistic spectrum is discussed in terms of the…

This article is about the relinquishment of newborns and women's reproductive rights. This article is based on a survey of factors that cause a woman to give up her newborn child, in the context of other events and circumstances in her life; the method of qualitative interviews was used in the cities of Moscow, Nizhnii Novgorod, Samara and Samara…

Links between neonatal biological rhythms and the emergence of interaction rhythms were examined in 3 groups (N=71): high-risk preterms (HR; birth weight less than 1,000 g), low-risk preterms (LR; birth weight=1,700-1,850 g), and full-term (FT) infants. Once a week for premature infants and on the 2nd day for FT infants, sleep-wake cyclicity was…

Neonatal jaundice (NNJ) is a common disorder worldwide and many affected babies become brain-damaged due to delay in seeking medical consultation. In order to assess the awareness and knowledge of expectant mothers about NNJ, women who registered for antenatal care at a tertiary health facility in the South-western part of Nigeria were…

The main purpose of our study was to assess the effects of prenatal tobacco smoke on respiratory symptoms and on doctor consultations in a birth cohort of 445 infants who had no smoking mothers and who had no postnatal exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). Before and after delivery, questionnaires and interviews with mothers were…