This observational study examined 60 mothers' comments during play with their 4- to 8-month-old infants who had been either full-term, preterm well, or preterm sick. Mothers of sick preterm babies engaged in the most overall talking, mothers of full-term babies made the most negative remarks, and mothers of healthy preterm babies made the fewest…

This study examined differences between the preverbal communicative behaviors of 20 premature and 20 full-term infants at 4 and 7 months of age. Significant differences between groups were found in such communicative skills as gestures, eye contact, tactile-kinesthetic behaviors, and vocalizations. Mothers also differed in their communication…

This article describes an ongoing support program in a Head Start program for grandparents who are serving as the primary caretakers of their grandchildren. Information is provided on the program's purpose and goals, the grandparents who attend, how meetings are run, experiences and incidental learning, and the progression of the group. (DB)

The authorship of messages produced through facilitated communication was evaluated with seven adults with moderate/severe mental retardation and their facilitators. Clients produced correct answers only when the facilitator had access to the same information, and they never produced correct answers when the facilitator had no information or false…

Examined the relationship between infants' early verbal imitation, when the ability to copy behaviors first emerges, and their lexical development during the second year of life. Twenty infants were examined longitudinally at ages 10, 13, 17, and 21 months. Suggests that infants' early imitation of words not in their repertoires predicts and may…

Choice making by people with an intellectual disability was studied through observation in three settings: a private family home, a community group home, and an independent living situation. Factors that affect choice making are identified, including experience at making choices and the role of support people. Suggestions are offered for service…

Discusses the need to understand the unique nature of illness and dying for each person and circumstance. Describes ways for center directors to deal sensitively with an employee's illness. Explores the impact of serious illness on child care programs and examines pitfalls to avoid in dealing with ill employees. (SM)

Describes Homebound Learning Opportunities, innovative health promotion and educational outreach service for homebound older adults and their caregivers. Notes that program provides over 125 topics for individualized learning programs delivered to participants in homes, audiovisual lending library, educational television programing, and peer…

A study of the everyday pretending of children in nine middle-class families addressed fundamental issues about the social nature of early pretend play. Children were followed from 12 to 48 months of age. Children's pretending occurred predominantly in interaction with others. (GLR)

This study examined the knowledgeability of child care workers (n=97) regarding their rights and responsibilities in reporting suspected child sexual abuse. Day care personnel knew significantly less about procedures for reporting suspected abuse and their protection under the law (when compared to child sexual abuse experts). (Author/DB)

Winbush suggests that family caregiving today occurs in a context of changed family composition and devalued attitudes toward families. Cantor highlights trends in family structure that may affect the ability of families to care for impaired members. (SK)

Maternal speech to seven Japanese children (ages three to eight) with severe mental retardation and five controls matched for mental age and language ability was compared. Subjects' vocalizations were less spontaneous and less adequate than controls'. Maternal utterances to subjects were less responsive, more negative in content, and characterized…

Compares help older people give with patterns of help given by younger adults via analysis of interviews with married men and women. Suggests that older adults are less involved in helping kin and friends but volunteer more than younger adults and that gender is a significant and consistent predictor of caregiving. (CRR)

Tested the fine-tuning hypothesis of language acquisition, which postulates that parents fine-tune their speech to their children's language level, by examining local patterns of interaction within the conversations of three parent-child dyads. The high positive correlations between parent-child dyads for the different interactional patterns…

Randomly assigned depressed family caregivers (n=66) of frail elderly relatives to 20 sessions of cognitive-behavioral (CB) or brief psychodynamic (PD) individual psychotherapy. At posttreatment, 71% of caregivers were no longer clinically depressed, with no differences found between two treatments. Found interaction between treatment modality and…