This study of 105 12-month olds replicated 4 similar studies that showed that infants in day care are at risk for insecure attachment. Failure to reproduce significant results suggests that the research literature on infant day care and attachment may be biased by the unavailability of "file drawer" studies--unpublished data showing no…

This article reviews the literature on conflict resolution skills and applies it to local interagency coordinating councils attempting to coordinate services to young children with special needs and their families. Six dimensions (climate, people, resources, agency, process, and policies) of the collaborative process are identified. (Author/DB)

This article reports results of a national survey of 629 veteran and 704 referred parents participating in Parent to Parent programs, noting the program's role as part of comprehensive family-centered services for parents of young children with special needs. The survey collected information about where programs are, services they provide, and…

Attempts to determine whether children can use social-pragmatic cues to determine "what kind" of referent, object, or action an adult intends to indicate with a novel word. Doubts that children assume that a novel word refers to whatever nameless object is present. Suggests that lexical acquisition rests fundamentally on children's…

Examines whether knowledge of functional properties of a referent for a new name influences children's first guesses about whether that name refers to an object or a substance. Suggests that children do not rely on a single source of information, but rather draw on various kind of information, including perceptual characteristics of the entities…

Examined the effects of infant age on parent-infant interactions during picture-book reading. Subjects were 3 groups of parent-infant dyads with infants aged 9, 17, and 27 months. Found that parents reading to younger infants used more attention-recruiting verbalizations and more elaborations, compared with parents reading to older infants, who…

The Infant Behavior Record (IBR) assessed the temperament of 95 nonadoptive and 80 adoptive sibling pairs at 1 and 2 years of age. Data from this and an earlier similar study of identical and fraternal twins yielded evidence for genetic influence for IBR factors of extraversion, activity, and task orientation. (BC)

This review of literature on infant habituation and recognition memory performance as predictors of later IQ concludes that the level of prediction is (1) substantial; (2) higher for at-risk than nonrisk children; and (3) not higher than the level of predictions based on parental education and socioeconomic status. (MDM)

Discusses the major theorists of infant/toddler emotional development. Lists behavioral warning signs of infant/toddler emotional distress or mental health problems. Describes methods for fostering babies' mental health and reducing their stress, and caregiver behaviors that promote infant mental health. (BB)

Children whose mothers were consistently more responsive during the children's infancy and early adolescence achieved higher IQ and arithmetic scores, had more positive self-esteem, and were reported by teachers to exhibit fewer behavior problems than children of mothers who were consistently less responsive. (BC)

A modification of the observer-based psychoacoustic procedure was used to estimate the detectability of auditory signals by infants. Data from infants up to 3.5 months of age revealed improvement in performance as a function of increasing signal intensity and age. (BC)

Mothers' utterances were measured during interactions with their 13-month-old infants and correlated with measures of infants' productive lexical development at 13 and 24 months. Correlations between maternal measures and infants' lexical development were lower for employed mothers than for mothers who were full-time caregivers. (BC)

Assessed temperament of children of 5-42 months of age. A Q-sort measure was used to assess children's attachment security between 12 and 45 months. Analysis of results revealed an association between temperament and attachment security at all ages. (BC)

This study, with 48 infants and toddlers (24 of which were drug exposed), found that mothers who used drugs during pregnancy reported higher levels of total parenting stress, child-related stress, and parent-related stress than foster mothers and comparison mothers. A strong association between maternal use of drugs and serious child maltreatment…

The development of 58 preterm low-risk infants was compared over their first 7 years with 100 full-term infants. The study found "catch up" phenomena at certain ages and periods of reversal. Results also indicated that advantaged family circumstances may reduce or compensate for preterm birth whereas a disadvantaged environment may amplify adverse…