A longitudinal study of 39 infants who engaged in stereotyped or self-injurious behaviors that were served in early intervention programs found these behaviors increased and declined over age more slowly than in typical babies. Head-banging seemed to be related to tantrums, whereas eye-poking developed early and seemed to be self-stimulatory.…

A study involving 23 mothers of children with deafness and 23 controls investigated the impact of child deafness on stress, social networks, and social support satisfaction. When children were 22 months, mothers of children with deafness expressed more stress, however at ages 3 and 4, stress was comparable to controls. (Contains references.)…

Discusses advantages of technology such as handheld computers in classrooms that include children with disabilities. Asks how technological devices affect very young children with or without disabilities and reviews criteria for selecting software, Web sites, and resources for teaching with technology. (DLH)

Special educators are urged to prepare for the increasing numbers of children disabled due to maternal drug use. Encouraged are interagency coordination, increased data collection, personnel preparation, renewed emphasis on "child find" and individualized education programs, and overcoming political resistance to service expansions. (DB)

Surveys and conference discussion found that typical students in preservice special education programs training to serve infants with handicaps and their families receive very little content related to infants or families, in undergraduate or graduate special education. More coverage was found in programs specializing in infancy or early…

Compares the prosodic modifications in mothers' and fathers' speech to preverbal infants in American and British English, French, German, Japanese, and Italian. Speech samples were instrumentally analyzed to measure mean fundamental frequency, variability, utterance, duration, and pause duration. (67 references) (Author/CB)

Reports on a cross-cultural study of expectations about developmental timetables for young children held by infant and preprimary teachers in Amherst, Massachusetts, and Pistoia, Italy. Findings indicate that teachers' expectations are influenced by culture, as well as child development training and experience with children. (BB)

Investigates levels and patterns of intellectual development of 131 socioeconomically disadvantaged children in university-based intervention group day care or community day care, or with little or no day care. Results suggest that high quality day care may positively change the intellectual development of socioeconomically disadvantaged children.…

A review of 40 federally funded personnel preparation projects for infant specialists focused on: demographic information; project scope; project rationale; training content, including competencies, practicum, and coursework; staff; budget; and project evaluation. Areas needing further examination by the early intervention field include training…

Fifty states and five territories were surveyed to determine implementation of the federal Program for Infants and Toddlers with Handicaps, established through Public Law 99-457. Questions focused on the states' interagency coordinating councils, definitions of developmental delay, and activities related to the required minimal components of…

A survey of 31 Colorado special education directors determined which handicapped children, from birth to age 5, should be served in which settings. Results found that administrators see an emerging role for the public schools, are willing to serve a broader range of young handicapped children, and see the need for more integrated settings.…

The limited research on precocity in infants and preschool children is reviewed, examining specifically the problems of: describing young gifted children, predicting their future development, determining the origins of high achievement motivation and commitment, and nurturing the talent at home and/or in the preschool. (Author/JDD)

Outlines infants' and preschoolers' implicit protoquantitative reasoning schemas and shows how these combine with early counting knowledge to produce mathematical concepts of number. Reviews research on elementary school children's informal and invented arithmetic, and evaluates implications for mathematics education. (Author/BJV)

Compared play, social, and attachment behaviors of 71 preschool children who had entered infant day care at varying ages and received varying amounts of day care. Concluded that continuous infant day care in quality centers appears to facilitate preschool social behavior and does not negatively affect attachment behavior. (NH)

The Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986 (Public Law 99-457) creates incentives for states to serve all handicapped children three through five years of age and provides a new discretionary program to meet the needs of handicapped infants and toddlers and their families. (MLF)