Because many special-needs infants are at risk for delayed or maladaptive feeding skills and malnutrition, the Nutrition and Feeding Risk Identification Tool was developed using a family-centered, community-based, coordinated approach to screening and assessment of nutrition and feeding concerns of families. The measure's development,…

Relations between infant information processing and specific cognitive outcomes at age 11 years were examined in a sample of preterm and full-term infants. Seven-month visual recognition memory and 1-year cross-modal transfer predicted 11-year intelligence quotient (IQ). (MDM)

Explores the dissociation between the performance by children with autism on false belief tasks, on which they do poorly, and false photograph, false map, and false drawing tasks, on which they do well. Suggesting domain specificity in the development of representational system, the results supported the modularity of theory of mind and the…

Reviews "The Transition from Infancy to Language: Acquiring the Power of Expression" (L. Bloom). Underscores that Bloom's account of word learning represents an ethnographic, theoretic, and research approach that explores development by starting with the child, and looks at the many behaviors of the child and views these in relation to…

This study found that mothers (n=40) of extremely high-risk infants (averaging 1000 grams birthweight and 28 weeks gestational age) called upon the same experiences and sources of information as mothers of full-term infants. Infants of mothers with above average knowledge about infancy scored significantly higher on tests of infant development at…

Premature infants with subependymal or intraventricular hemorrhage took longer to habituate on a habituation task, and scored lower on a measure of mental development, than did other premature infants or full-term infants. Both groups of premature infants were less successful than full-term infants on an object permanence task. (BC)

The potency of different sugars as calming agents in human infants was investigated in 2 experiments with 40 infants. Sucrose and fructose were equally effective calming agents, whereas glucose was less effective. Results indicate that the calming effects of milk lie in components other than its sugar. (LB)

Describes research on young children's long-term memory under 2 conditions of acquisition: direct imitation followed by a 10-minute delay, or deferred imitation. Children were able to encode and retain as much from visual pickup of modeled acts as from feedback obtained through imitation. (Author/GH)

In an experiment, 13.5-month-old children were tested on 2- and 3-act sequences depicting familiar and novel events. Using elicited imitation, they reliably recalled the sequences in the correct temporal order. In a second experiment, 11.5 month olds accurately recalled 2-act sequences depicting familiar and novel events. (BC)

Quantitative measures were made of the fundamental frequency patterns of Japanese mother's speech addressed to infants aged 0;3-0;4. Frequency ranges were found to change with repeated attempts to get the infant's attention but were not otherwise altered substantially from normal adult patterns when an initial attempt was made to gain the infant's…

Observed 54 dual-wage and 34 single-wage Indian couples during interactions with their infant children. Results confirmed traditional patterns of involvement with babies irrespective of family structure, and differential maternal involvement with babies by family structure. Personal well-being and kinship ties were good predictors of…

Among 1980-82 Florida birth cohorts, infant mortality rates were higher for Puerto Ricans and Mexicans than for Cubans and other Hispanics. Controlling for birth weight and prenatal care had little impact on differentials, but interactions were found among marital status, maternal age, and Hispanic group identity. Contains 47 references. (SV)

Assigned 60 couples to training group learning behavioral strategies to promote healthy sleep patterns in infants or to control group. At 6-9 weeks, training group infants displayed significantly better sleeping patterns than did control infants. Training group parents awakened and responded less often to infant signaling and reported greater…

This study evaluated the Columbus (Ohio) Children's Hospital vision stimulation program, involving in-home intervention with 15 visually impaired infants. Comparison with controls indicated benefits of appropriate vision stimulation in increasing the neural foundation for vision and visual-motor function in visually impaired infants. (Author/DB)

Examined mothers' perceptions of low birthweight infants, neonatal hospital environment, and general parenting attitudes during the perinatal period. Maternal age and socioeconomic status were associated with maternal perceptions of hospital environment. Variables including maternal health, smoking, and length of infant hospitalization contributed…