Examines periods of mutual gaze and visual coorientation between mothers and their two- to four-month-old infants as contexts for the utilization of maternal verbal control techniques. Additional questions involve the impact of infant sex and maternal sensitivity upon the utilization of these techniques. (Author/MP)

Provides further support for the contention held by Thomas, Chess, and Korn (1982) that the concept of difficult temperament is not totally a construction of the parents. (MP)

Participation in Project DEBT (Developmental Education Birth through Two) resulted in statistically significant improvements in family interaction scores of mild/at-risk and moderately handicapped children but not among severely handicapped children (Total N=90). Possible explanations include a shorter mean treatment time for severely handicapped…

Examined the conditions under which infants employ (1) spatial codes respondent to objects central to their visual field and (2) spatial codes respondent to objects peripheral to their visual field. (DB)

Recent reports have indicated that parents and/or physicians occasionally decide not to provide life-sustaining treatment (referred to as involuntary euthanasia), thus ensuring that the severely handicapped newborn will die. The issues involved relative to treatment or involuntary euthanasia are reviewed from two opposing perspectives…

The article gives a select overview of the purpose, process, and procedures which are involved in neonatal vision screening. Significant responses and reactions worth noting are outlined so an evaluator might have an indication of what to look for in using such a tool. (Author)

Research results show that it may be possible, within limitations, to facilitate discrimination by infants of inappropriate from appropriate verbal descriptions of a visual event, by emphasizing the agent component in a simple sentence. (Author/JB)

Investigates the predictability of cognitive differences at 12 months from infant and maternal behaviors at 4 months. Overall, the results show that some individual differences in cognition may be predictable across the first year of life. (Author/RH)

Describes an activity for college geography classes in which students study demographic transitions and spatial patterns which provide a clear understanding of what modernization implies in Middle and South America. Students make maps, construct scattergrams, and analyze birth rates, gross national products, and infant mortality rates in 19…

The Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) underwent a generalizability study examining the consistency and stability of scores. Canonical correlation and principal components factor analysis indicated that the organization of environment changes over the first two years of life, and the amount--not type--of stimulation is…

Prior studies found individual differences in visual recognition memory during infancy were related to individual differences in later intelligence. This paper discusses methodological issues in the measurement of infant visual recognition, the significance of previously obtained predictive validity coefficients, and the theoretical question of…

The present study was designed to determine whether a reactivation procedure (consisting of the experimenter's manipulation of a previously experienced overhead crib mobile) would alleviate infant's poor retention after a 14-day interval. It is concluded that forgetting by young infants may result from failures in retrieval, and not failures in…

Newborns were presented with a tape-recorded rattle sound through a single loudspeaker, through two loudspeakers with one onset leading the other by seven msecs., and through two loudspeakers simultaneously. Newborns turned toward the single source sound, but not toward either of the dual source sounds. (Author/RH)

Presents results of two experiments which measured contrast sensitivity function in infants. Information concerning development of visual acuity, low frequency attenuation, and sensitivity to contrast were collected. Results provide an approximate picture of and means for detection of infants' pattern information. (Author/DB)

Ratings of social behavior and scores on the Bayley Mental Development Index (MDI) were obtained for 33,685 infants, eight months of age. A composite measure of sociability correlated .23 with total MDI scores, .26 on the socially loaded items, and .17 with the nonsocial items. (Author/RH)