Proposes, as an alternative to Sokolovian models, a model of early habituation based on selective adaptation of feature detectors. The model suggests that early habituation is attributable to the organization and immaturity of the young infant's visual system. (RH)

Investigated changes in non-nutritive sucking behavior of premature infants when light stimulation was presented. Results generally support past evidence that premature infants are capable of making orienting and discriminative responses to visual stimuli and chronological age effects were indicated. (DP)

Child-care practices generally reflect society as it was, not as it is coming to be, and child-care books contain little that is factual. (AB)

Tests the hypothesis that developmentally delayed children differ from normal children on tasks involving discernment of nuances, balancing competing stimuli, or acquiring and retaining selected information. Attention deployment behaviors in a free-play situation were examined for three groups: normally developing, Down syndrome, and…

Studies the reactions of 24 infants 18 to 24 months of age to simulated and naturally occurring incidents of distress in others. Additionally investigates the relationship between self-recognition and infants' prosocial or altruistic responses to others in distress. Results provide strong evidence for infants' tendencies to help and comfort.…

Found that infants who were delivered with their head turned right exhibited a neonatal right supine head orientation and a right-hand preference in visually guided reaching tasks at 19 weeks of age. Contrary to prediction, infants delivered with their head turned left did not exhibit a left-sided preference in either neonatal head position or…

Twenty-two infants (6.7 to 12.3 months old) were tested on a visual-cliff apparatus both crawling and in a walker. Results suggest a maturation-based explanation of cliff-avoidance in infants. (CM)

Four groups of infants, 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 months of age, were presented with repeated speech stimuli which were synthesized exemplars of the sound, "baba," natural exemplars of "baba" or "kaba," or novel syllables on each trial. (RH)

Tests the hypothesis that infants may learn to respond to cues which consistently specify the ultimate location of an object which is displaced while invisible. Subjects were 96 nine-month-old infants. (MP)

Two experiments probed 8-month-olds' ability to represent different kinds of entities: rigid, cohesive objects; flexible, cohesive objects; and non-rigid, non-cohesive portions of sand. Results suggest that the processes by which infants individuate and track entities are sensitive to material kind, rigid cohesive objects occupy a privileged…

Examines spontaneous temporally patterned stimulation of 17 mothers and their 3-month-old infants. Mothers used an impressive variety of temporally patterned behaviors. Factors relating to infant responsiveness contributed to the variability. (RJC)

Infant cortisol and behavioral responses to receiving one versus two inoculations on one pediatric office visit were observed at two and six months of age. The findings indicate a developmental trend for a decline over age in adrenocortical reactivity to inoculation for infants showing a cortisol release following perturbation. Results were…

Used results of a study of 5 month olds and a study of 5-11 month olds to differentiate subtypes of infant mouthing. Only certain types of mouthing constituted exploratory activity. The process of mouthing an object then looking at it can be designated as exploratory mouthing. (BG)