Summarizes the debate over the work of Jay Belsky, who claims that nonparental day care increases the likelihood of socioemotional difficulties for infants less than one year old. Previews a special journal issue that contains an article by Belsky and four responses. Focuses on attachment theory, intervention programs, and research methodology.…

Experimental group mothers reported significantly greater self-confidence and satisfaction with mothering and more favorable perception of infant temperament than did control group mothers. Differences between children on cognitive scores became significant at 36 and 48 months of age, when the experimental group caught up with normal children. (RH)

In comparison with full-term infants, seven-month-old high-risk preterm infants exhibited deficits in visual recognition memory and in the ability to recruit, sustain, and shift attention. (RH)

Wary infants were more likely than bold infants to reference their mothers when the stimulus, a caged rabbit, was first presented; however, as the exploration period progressed, bold and wary infants referenced equally often. Referencing occurred less often than affective sharing. (RH)

This report describes the implementation variation of physical and occupational therapy for 43 motor-delayed infants in early intervention programs. The influences of infant, family, and program variables on the actual therapy services were determined. Therapist availability and severity of motor delay were the critical factors influencing the…

Argues that research does not warrant Belsky's position that infant child care for more than 20 hours per week is a risk factor for infants' insecure-avoidant attachment and children's maladaptive social behavior. Suggests that quality of care and family characteristics are major influences. (NH)

Describes observer-based technique for assessing auditory capacities of infants from three to 12 months of age. This technique, referred to as the Observation-based Psychoacoustic Procedure (OPP), combines features of the Forced-choice Preferential Looking Technique and of the Visual Reinforcement Audiometry. Pure-tone detection and frequency…

Describes the English infant-primary school system in terms of its history, its current program and curriculum design, and the cultural differences inherent in England that make its educational system unique. (BB)

The article describes an alternative approach to preparing infant interventionists by providing interdepartmental training in special education and maternal and child health. The program recognizes the transactional nature of infant development, infants as part of a family system, and the ecological notion that the family system is nested within…

The article describes Public Law 98-199 and its Early Childhood Plan Grant Program which makes planning, development, and implementation grants available to all states for provision of interagency collaborative services to disabled children ages birth through 5. Ways in which parent advocacy groups can influence early intervention services are…

Analysis of a one-year-old's lexical development suggested factors causing overextensions: using known words for more recently acquired or unknown words; expressing incomplete knowledge of defining features of two or more similar meaning words; producing overextensions of preferred words; using phonologically simpler more than difficult words; and…

Examines effects of age, sex, and sibling status on children's ideas about infants and infant care. The sample consisted of 43 preschoolers and 42 second graders, half of whom were boys, half were girls, and half were singletons. Older children with siblings were more knowledgeable than either their singleton peers or younger children.…

This study investigates the nature and the factor structure of infant intelligence. The Bayley Mental Scale items were administered. According to the analysis, intelligence at any age is a set of separate mental abilities at each age, and there are a variety of paths through which mental development occurs. (JAZ)

A group of 43 children classified as either behaviorally inhibited or uninhibited at 21 months were observed at four years of age in situations designed to evaluate behavior with an unfamiliar peer, heart rate and heart rate variability to cognitively challenging tasks, reluctance to answer difficult questions, and differential fixation of an…

Studies the ability of 5-month-old infants to recall temporal information and use temporal organization by training them to fixate a hierarchically structured or unstructured sequence of stimuli which appeared in four spatial positions. Results are interpreted within a temporal organizational framework; infants appear to use organization within…