Two studies examined whether sustained attention during object exploration reflects more active cognitive processing than do other attention components. One study suggested that length of infants' examining is related to the amount of information to be processed. The other showed infants were less distractible during examining, suggesting that…

The stability of adult attachment and transmission of attachment across 3 generations were examined in a longitudinal study of 96 infants, their mothers, and maternal grandmothers. The study found that mothers' Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) classifications were stable over 12 months in 90% of mothers and 73% of grandmothers, using the AAI's…

Provides critical commentary on Nicholas Eberstadt's assertion that low-weight births and infant mortality among blacks in Washington, DC, is mainly the result of high rates of illegitimacy and other parental behaviors. Nicholas Eberstadt's response is included. (GLR)

Tested the recognition memory of 4-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month-old infants using visual paired comparison tasks. Found that at even the youngest age that reaching was tested (6 months), infants showed evidence of recognition memory on the reaching task at delays at least as long as those at which they demonstrated recognition memory on the looking…

Several issues are explored regarding child care in a bilingual setting, including dismissing myths regarding the supposed negative effects of bilingualism; understanding what caregivers can do to ensure a positive and responsive environment in which communication thrives; and communicating with the family and understanding its general social…

Four experiments tested four month olds on visual discrimination tasks. As the time allotted to solve these problems was shortened, infants who looked at stimuli for a short amount of time performed better than other infants, indicating that performance superiority was attributable to speed of processing. (BC)

In one experiment, infants and children were accurate in their judgments about the knowledge of a baby, child, and adult. In two further experiments, children reported that an infant, child, or adult observer would be able to identify an object from an identifiable or nondescript part of the object. (BC)

This study examines the distribution of nouns and verbs in maternal speech to one year olds. Mothers and children were videotaped. Nouns and verbs in maternal speech were coded for frequency, sentence position, and occurrence with grammatical inflections. Frequency of nouns and verbs varied with context. (33 references) (KM)

Do infants and young children possess implicit theory of mind that is revealed through their communicative interactions, or are they simply treating their interlocutors as objects to manipulate in service to their own material ends? Paper reviews additional evidence indicating infants in second year of life are capable of communicating for sake of…

Two studies examined four- and five-month-old infants' behaviors of leaning forward toward, and reaching for, an object placed within or beyond their reach. Infants who did not lean forward showed a decline in reaching behavior when the object was placed beyond their reach. (MDM)

Mothers, teachers, and assistant teachers completed two measures of child behavior when children born prematurely were two and three years old. Interinstrument correlations for total scores, and the stability of the Behavior Check List from two to three years, were moderate. Interrater agreements between teachers and assistant teachers were…

Assessed 13- and 20-week-olds infants' discrimination between shearing stimuli, in which columns of dots move vertically on a screen at different velocities, and foil stimuli, in which all dots move at the same velocity. Results revealed the threshold levels of dot velocity in shearing stimuli at which discrimination occurred. (BC)

Vocal interactions of mothers and infants were recorded. Mothers' vocalizations were coded for five categories of pitch. Infant vocalization in relation to pitch variants of maternal speech was characterized by several physical parameters, such as duration and peak frequency of vocalization. (BC)

This study of healthy 39-week-old infants, so-called term infants, and chronically stressed 42-week-old infants, so-called postmature infants, showed that sucrose was extremely effective in calming term infants but less effective in calming postmature infants. Results supported the hypothesis that sucrose engages an opioid system in infants. (BG)

Long-term effects on auditory electrophysiology from early fluctuating hearing loss were studied in 27 children, aged 5 to 7 years, who had been evaluated originally in infancy. Findings suggested that early fluctuating hearing loss disrupts later auditory brain stem electrophysiology. (Author/DB)