This article reports the findings from two research studies that investigated (1) the early intervention and referral practices knowledge of physicians (n=556) and (2) the practices of 32 Virginia Local Interagency Coordinating Council coordinators. Seventy-five percent of physicians felt knowledgeable about early intervention. Strategies to…

Analyzes the speech of a German-French bilingual boy and observes two major developmental phases: (1) one characterized by object drop similar to that seen in Chinese; and (2) one characterized by the acquisition of the object clitic paradigm and a shift to an adult-like morphological licensing mechanism. (84 references) (Author/CK)

Mothers and infants were observed in the laboratory when the infants were 12, 18, and 24 months. Mothers reported their child's behavior at 36 months. Predictors of boys' externalizing behavior at two and three years were maternal unresponsiveness and infant attention seeking, aggression, and noncompliance. For girls, infant noncompliance was…

Acquisition of the location aspect of American Sign Language signs was examined in nine young hearing infants and toddlers of deaf parents. Sign locations, overall, were produced with 83.5% accuracy. Highly contrasting locations were acquired first. Location played a central role in young children's early sign language acquisition. (Author/DB)

Monolingual Spanish-speaking children between the ages of 2 and 4 were given two structured tasks that assessed the contrastive use of "se" for coding these functions. Results suggest there is a differential order of acquisition of the clitic "se," whereby children initially contrast regular and reflexive with nonreflexive…

Discusses influence of mothers' transitional behaviors on their infants' and toddlers' transitions to out-of-home care, emphasizing how caregivers can support mothers. Addresses three concerns mothers have in placing children in day care: the view that a mother's place is at home, the issue of trusting the caregiver, and the cost of high-quality…

A study trained four parent-child advocates serving homeless parents and children (ages birth-3) in providing one-on-one early intervention to facilitate healthy parent-child interactions. After training, all advocates increased their use of positive, contingent, and instructive feedback and mothers became more contingent, social-emotional growth…

A study involving 82 children with low vision evaluated the new developmental age levels and psychometric properties for the Reynell-Zinkin scales. The usefulness of age levels of the Reynell-Zinkin scales is discussed in relation to the aim of the scales, which is to have guidelines for assessment and developmental advice. (Contains references.)…

Information about the early intervention service systems in 20 states was gathered and organized into dimensions of a framework for describing early intervention systems at the state and local levels. Results indicate considerable variation exists on eligibility criteria, agencies involved in early intervention, and models of intake and service…

Presents 30 suggestions for preventing behavior problems among infants and toddlers in child care settings. The suggestions are in four areas: (1) environment; (2) caregiver style; (3) organization and routines; and (4) child to child: as situations happen. (KB)

Used quantitative genetic design to examine between- and within-family variations and gene-environment processes in parent-child mutuality among 3-year-old identical and same-sex fraternal twins. Found that greater mutuality was associated with higher socioeconomic status. Moderate sibling similarity in parent-child mutuality was accounted for by…

Twenty 2-year-olds and their mothers performed joint book-reading tasks involving narrative and expository genres. During the expository genre, the mothers asked significantly more questions, used more labels, and provided more positive and negative feedback to their children compared to the narrative genre. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

A study conducted demographic analyses of Maryland's early intervention data by geographic region for training implications. The data were collected from January 1, 1992 to December 31, 1995. Although there ware many areas of overlapping needs, results indicated that training needs can vary from one geographic locale to the next. (Contains…

This article argues that the use of developmental apraxia of speech (DAS) as a label for infants and toddlers who are prelinguistic may prematurely label a young child. Diagnostic indicators are reviewed and suggestions for diagnostic therapy to pursue appropriate differential diagnoses in the infant-toddler population are proposed. (Contains…

Examined data from NICHD study to determine relationship of children's child care experience to peer competence at 24 and 36 months, after controlling for effects of family and child characteristics. Found consistent, modest relations between early child-care experiences and peer competencies. Maternal sensitivity and children's cognitive and…