Measured the neurobehavioral integrity of Irish infants and maternal alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking. Subjects were 127 primiparous mothers. Results demonstrated significant cry effects on infants of heavily drinking mothers, supporting the conclusion that newborn infants show functional disturbances in the nervous system resulting from…

Twenty-four children, ages 14 to 50 months, with a history of prenatal exposure to multiple drugs including cocaine but living in stable drug-free environments were tested. Comparison with non-exposed children found significant differences between groups on two of three standardized tests of language development, with almost half of the exposed…

Argues that curriculum plays a vital role in quality programs for children under three. Proposes that development of trusting, caring relationships be the focal point of baby and toddler programming. Elaborates a curriculum model that specifies content (what is to be taught), processes (how it is to be taught), and the context in which learning…

Featured article discusses feeding infants, advocating use of homemade baby food as more economical, healthy, environmentally friendly, tasty, and smoothing the transition to finger foods. Also presents innovative classroom techniques, such as detergent box totes, and a forum for open discussion of child care topics, such as student evaluation and…

Evaluated effects of infection control interventions--including infection control lectures and attention to environmental hygiene--on the number and types of infection illnesses occurring in a specialized preschool. Subjects were infants and preschoolers with Down Syndrome. Found that total illnesses decreased significantly, particularly for…

The second of two articles on play reviews the construct of play and its development in typically developing infants, toddlers, and young children. It considers developmental levels of play from early sensorimotor-exploratory to symbolic play involving the functional components of agent, instrument, and scheme. A developmentally based,…

Observed 10-, 26-, and 42-month-olds playing under several distraction conditions to describe development of attention and distractibility. Found that casual attention decreased and focused attention increased with age. Ten-month-olds were more distractible than older children, even during focused attention. Infants were most distracted by the…

Reviews existing evidence on the relationship between class size and achievement for children in their first years of schooling. Describes a large-scale longitudinal study of these children within English local education authorities. Presents results for achievement progress in literacy and mathematics during the reception year. (BT)

The Haifa Study of Early Child Care examined the unique contribution of various child-care-related correlates to infant-mother attachment. Findings indicated that, after controlling for other potential contributing variables (including mother characteristics, mother-child interaction, and mother- father relationship), center care adversely…

This article first reviews early social and communication indicators of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in infants and toddlers. It then reviews evidence-based intervention practices for children with ASD and identifies principles for providing intervention for infants and toddlers at risk for ASD. Issues addressed include providing intervention in…

Videotaped social interactions between infants with severe or profound bilateral hearing loss (and using amplification consistently by three to six months of age) and normally hearing peers. Found that severely and profoundly hearing impaired infants can follow a normal pattern of communicative and linguistic development (albeit sometimes delayed)…

Examines the communicative use of gestural and vocal modalities by normally developing Italian children during the transition from one- to two-word speech. Results indicate that gesture and gesture-word combinations during this transition is a robust feature of communicative development in a rich gestural culture. (37 references) (Author/CK)

Assessed emotionality of firstborn boys at 3 months, parenting behaviors at 15-33 months, and infant inhibition at 36 months. Found that children's inhibition was predicted by supportive parenting and by a combination of infants' high negative emotionality rating and low positive emotionality rating. Parenting influences were more apparent for…

Conducted a trivariate genetic analysis of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME), Mental Development Index (MDI), and Task Orientation (TO). Found that for 101 nonadoptive and 92 adoptive sibling pairs at 12 and 24 months of age, TO explained the remaining genetic variance on the HOME not explained by the MDI. (MDM)

Analysis of transcripts of interviews with 16 Taiwanese mothers of babies with Down syndrome identified two themes. The first theme highlights ways in which mothers talked about the abilities and limitations of their babies; the second describes what appear to be two distinct frames of reference (pessimistic and optimistic) with respect to having…