Four developmentally delayed babies were given semicircular canal stimulation in an effort to facilitate their motor and reflex development. All of the children showed motor and/or reflex changes that were attributable to the vestibular stimulation. In addition, some evidence was obtained linking changes in stereotypic responding to the vestibular…

Discusses published references to deaf infants babbling like normal hearing children and states that the relationship between babbling and hearing still remains to be proven. (EKN)

Ethical issues are examined that involve withholding medical treatment from severely handicapped infants. Although current laws do not sanction euthanasia, severely handicapped infants are often assisted in dying. Discussion includes society's apparent acceptance of this practice and several solutions to the problems. (Author)

The influence of 10 days of maternal separation on behavior and physiology was studied in monkey infants. Individual variability in behavioral and physiological response was marked and showed only minimal correlation with measures of early behavioral development and early mother-infant interaction. Implications for understanding pathophysiology of…

The article explores recent findings on Fatal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), patterns of malformation, alcohol and other drugs, the toxicity of ethanol, the incidence of FAS, and implications of the syndrome. (Author)

Uncertainty was researched as a perceptual structure which mediates the transition from sensorimotor activity to language. The guiding notions are that the attentional system is geared to uncertainty from the beginning of life and that a speaker's language use is coordinated with this system as it emerges. (Author)

Middle-class children, divided by age, sex, and the presence/absence of younger siblings in the family, were studied to assess their interest in babies. The findings support MacDonald's contention that birth order effects are best understood as distinctive for each sex, especially when the behaviors investigated are sex-related. (Author/GC)

Children exhibiting a referential orientation seem more likely to acquire new object names than nonreferentially oriented children. Also, children's selection of words may be influenced by the phonological structure of the words. (Author/RH)

Argues that the development of object perception in infancy involves the detection of structural invariants and that such detection is best understood in the context of dynamic events. (Author/MP)

Several propositions deduced from the discrepancy hypothesis were tested with four-month-old infants using random shapes in a habituation/discrepancy paradigm. (JMB)

Examines whether mothers modify their actions in response to infant facial expression or gaze direction. Subjects were seven pairs of mothers and infants (four to eight months old). Mothers were instructed to induce their infants to smile. (CM)

Preliminary results indicated that the binaural sensory aid is useful within a regular program of developmental intervention, but that positive effects cannot be attributed to the device alone. (Author/DLS)

Describes an elective infant-care course being offered to fifth- and sixth-grade boys from Collegiate School in New York City. (SJL)

Reports on a comparison made between the videotaped behaviors of primary caretaker mothers and both primary and secondary caretaker fathers during face-to-face interactions with their four-month-old infants. (Author/SS)

Reports three experiments which investigated the discrimination of simple visual arrangements by three-month-old infants. An operant high-amplitude sucking technique was used in a stimulus familiarization-novelty paradigm. (JMB)