Assessed home visit quality in an Early Head Start program using measures developed in collaboration with program staff. Found that parent ratings were high, indicating customer satisfaction with home visiting. Families perceived by staff as improving the most had home visitors observed as most effective at engaging parents and involving parent…

To characterize infant reactions to jealousy evocation, 94 6-month-olds and their mothers were videotaped in an episode where the mothers directed positive attention toward a lifelike doll, and in 2 contrasting interactions: face-to-face play and a still-face perturbation. Cross-context comparisons of affects and behaviors revealed that jealousy…

This study examined the developmental attainments of children with visual impairments, aged 6-59 months, with and without emotional deficits, behavioral deficits, or both. It found that an emotional or behavioral deficit was significantly related to gross motor and visual motor integration, expressive and receptive language, and social or personal…

This study investigated whether specific behaviors observed in 30 month-old low-birthweight children are predictive of diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and school difficulties at age 8. Videotapes of 571 participants were coded using the Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Observational Rating Scale (ADHD-ORS).…

The present study examined predictive linkages between cumulative psychosocial and medical risk, assessed neonatally, and infant development and parenting stress at 4 months of infant corrected age. Predominantly low-income, African-American mothers and their preterm infants served as participants. Cumulative psychosocial risk predicted early…

The development of the "inversion" effect in face processing was examined in infants 3 to 6 months of age by testing their integration of the internal and external features of upright and inverted faces using a variation of the "switch" visual habituation paradigm. When combined with previous findings showing that 7-month-olds use integrative…

This article describes the positive outcomes from the Philadelphia-based Educating Children for Parenting (ECP) program, founded in 1978, which aims to take advantage of children's fascination with babies and their easily triggered emotional investment in learning how to care for them. The program brings a parent and infant into the classroom…

In this article Tortora, a dance therapist, interviews Myron Hofer, director of the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology, Columbia University. Dr. Hofer has spent decades studying how the mother's behaviors and actions shape and regulate the physiological, neurophysiological, and psychological functioning of her babies--specifically,…

The author describes recent findings on the neurobiological mechanisms involved in perceptions of risk and safety. The term "Neuroception" describes how neural circuits distinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous, or life threatening. Neuroception explains why a baby coos at a caregiver but cries at a stranger, or why a…

The Pathways to Prevention (PTP) initiative was designed to help selected Early Head Start (EHS) programs enhance their mental health services for infants and toddlers by learning to work with infant mental health consultants. PTP engaged the author to provide support to the infant mental health consultants through regular group consultation via…

Background: Recent investigations suggest that experience plays an important role in the development of face processing. The aim of this study was to investigate the potential role of experience in the development of the ability to process facial expressions of emotion. Method: We examined the potential role of experience indirectly by…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the test-retest and inter-rater reliability of a measure of muscle extensibility developed by Tardieu, de la Tour, Bret, and Tardieu (1982) in fullterm and preterm newborns. Method: Twenty-one fullterm infants and twenty preterm infants were examined by two physical therapists. Each physical…

The authors examined the relationship between newborn neurobehavioral profiles and the characteristics of early mother-infant interaction in Nagasaki, Japan. The authors administered the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS; T. B. Brazelton & J. K. Nugent, 1995) in the newborn period and the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching…

This brief report attempts to resolve the claim that infants preferentially attend to continuous variables over number [e.g. Psychol. Sci. 10 (1999) 408; Cognit. Psychol.44 (2002) 33] with the finding that when continuous variables are controlled, infants as young as 6-months of age discriminate large numerical values [e.g. Psychol. Sci. 14 (2003)…

There is evidence that IQ tends to be higher in those who were heavier at birth or who grew taller in childhood and adolescence. Although these findings imply that growth in both foetal and postnatal life influences cognitive performance, little is known about the relative importance of brain growth during different periods of development. We…