A study investigated effects of comprehensive prenatal care on birthweight, child development, and maltreatment of children. A total of 2,585 pregnant women were screened at their first prenatal visits and the 428 at highest social risk were randomly assigned to either comprehensive intervention or routine prenatal care. The comprehensive…

This collection of 66 assessment instrument profiles was compiled to address the issue of multidisciplinary evaluation of infants and toddlers, aged birth through 2 years, and the identification of family needs. Six categories of instruments are included: (1) developmental screening, (2) developmental tests, (3) specific screening, (4) specific…

Viewed from an ecological perspective, maternal sense of competence and social support would be expected to influence a mother's spontaneous interactions with her infant. In this study 29 mother-infant dyads were visited in their homes when the infants with cerebral palsy were 18 months old. Infants' solitary spontaneous play and mother-infant…

In this document the Texas Department of Human Resources (DHR) presents criteria which day-care providers can use to evaluate their programs. The criteria can also be used by DHR staff to determine whether or not providers can deliver the services specified in their contracts with DHR. For each criterion, five achievement levels, clarification,…

Rich in practical guidelines and suggestions and intended for use with videos illustrating key concepts and caregiving techniques, this guide was written to help caregivers with their day-to-day efforts to nurture social and emotional growth in infants and toddlers. The guide is divided into five sections. In the first three sections, nationally…

This discussion begins by describing attitudes of Israeli infant teachers toward giving professional advice to mothers having problems with their infants. The discussion then (1) outlines some of the basic features of the infant houses on kibbutzim; (2) considers specific difficulties of some mother-infant dyads; and (3) describes interventions…

Within a longitudinal design, the present study assessed parental attitudes, quality of stimulation in the environment, historical factors, and children's temperament to identify determinants of cognitive ability at 54 months. Children (n=147) were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: a center-based intervention, a home-based…

The relation between maternal alcohol consumption and infant attachment behavior at one year of age was investigated in this study. Alcohol consumption was estimated by self-report questionnaires filled out by mothers who were over 30 years of age. The questionnaire elicited information about the amount of alcohol mothers consumed prior to,…

Discussed from a psychoanalytic perspective are areas of special difficulty in the phases of a three-year training observation of an infant and his family under the supervision of a 79-year-old child psychoanalyst and teacher. Specific attention is given to the child in relation to his family, the role of the observer in containing mother/infant…

The first in a series of three publications which address the prevention and treatment of developmental handicaps, this volume includes sections on developmental issues and the consideration of linkages. Section I includes the four following papers: "Early Intervention: The State of the Art" (N. Johnson and H. Chamberlin);…

The interplay between an infant's development and its family context during the early years has been studied in a longitudinal investigation. A total of 16 normal families having 1 child between 1 and 3 years of age and a newborn child were observed monthly in unstructured situations in their homes over a period of 2 years. When the youngest child…

Pre- and post-natal medical, financial, demographic, and maternal social support data were collected from 220 lower socioeconomic status (SES), "high risk" mothers and their newborn infants. Additional data were obtained later from a subsample of 19 boys and 19 girls between 18 and 24 months of age and their mothers. Mothers ranged in age from 15…

In comparing research conducted in the Netherlands and the United States on parental reports of child behavior, this document reports several studies in which Dutch parents of children ages 3 to 36 months completed a translated version of Bates' Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ). In the first part of the Dutch study, 7,000 parents…

Part of a larger study of adolescent social-cognitive development and its influence on mother/child interaction, this investigation compared three methods of recording observations of mother/child interaction. It also explored correlations between sociodemographic variables and factor scores that summarized interaction variables. The sample…