A study to gather information describing model infant and preschool programs for handicapped children in California is reported. Information was received from 142 proqrams (102 in California) including validated First Chance projects, Outreach projects funded by the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, Master Plan agencies in California,…

Two studies were conducted to examine (1) 1- to 3-day-old infants' imitation of their mothers, and (2) mothers' imitation of their newborn infants. For the infant imitation study, 30 mothers and their infants served as subjects. Two observers stood behind the mother to view the infant's face while the mother presented one of the following…

The paper reports on the evaluation of Project ESPIRIT (Educational System in Parenting for the Retarded with Infants and Toddlers), a home based program for normal children of retarded mothers. Research problems are cited, such as instability of the experimental group. Preliminary results of analysis of four treatment variables and the criterion…

This paper reviews the literature concerning motor related child deaths, emphasizes that automobile related incidents are the major cause of death in children below 14 and over 1 year of age, and provides suggestions about what pediatricians can do to reduce highway fatalities among children. Special attention is given to investigations of the use…

The development and use of the Parent Behavior Progression (PBP), a method to evaluate parent-infant interactions, are discussed. Two forms of the PBP contain six levels, beginning with an affective base providing for parent-infant attachment, and concluding with a more cognitive or growth promoting orientation. Considerations in the use of the…

This study investigates the ability of 13-month-old infants to use objects of varying degrees of realism in symbolic play and the genera1ization of this ability across different scene content. The effects of order of presentation of the task and of the behavioral coding scheme on the assessment of those abilities were also examined. Thirty male…

Evidence that hemispheric asymmetry is present at birth comes from several sources: physical structure of the brain, hand preference, and responses to visual and auditory stimuli. In infancy, a hemisphere is activated only when exposed to an appropriate stimulus. Different stimuli seem to activate one hemisphere only, or at least one hemisphere…

The speech of three girls aged 17 to 19 months was recorded in three at-home sessions. Patterns of single-word and multiple-word utterances were different for each of the three girls. This difference seems to support the notion that the most interaction-oriented child has, at least in terms of the word classes upon which she bases her…

The author stresses the importance of early intervention for handicapped children and infants, including proper nutrition programing for adolescent females before they become pregnant, adequate housing and economic security pre and postnatally, and parenting education. (CL)

This article contains a review of recent research on the: (1) effects of immediate post partum mother infant contact; (2) effects of early separation of parents and babies in neonatal intensive care; and (3) facilitation of reciprocal interaction between mothers and their infants in neonatal intensive care. A brief description of a study that…

The report focuses on the diet management of infant and preschool children with phenylketonuria (PKU), a congenital deficiency resulting in brain damage. The effective methods for rapidly lowering serum phenylalanine levels following diagnosis are discussed, a method for prescribing and calculating the phenylalanine-restricted diet is described,…

This paper attempts to tie empathy to the individual's development of a cognitive sense of the other, and thus to lay the groundwork for a stage analysis of the development of altruistic motivation. The first stage proposed in this scheme is empathic distress, the involuntary experiencing of another person's painful emotional state. Empathic…

This study investigated the effects of mother's distance and visual field on some attachment behaviors of children 21-36 months old. Subjects were 20 male and 20 female children, half of each sex being reared primarily at home and half primarily in day care. Each child was observed with his mother in an experimental setting for a total of 16…

This paper introduces and gives a report of the first of a series of studies concerned with the developmental aspects of information processing. The experiments are concerned chiefly with how repeated visual encounters influence infants' attentional preference for what is familiar or unfamiliar and how infants' preference can be affected by…

Habituation and dishabituation to a simple geometric stimulus were examined for a sample of 36 5-month old subjects. All subjects viewed successive presentations of a standard stimulus, and, following a retention interval, a single presentation of the standard and a novel stimulus in the test phase. During the interpolated interval, repeated…