Congenital heart disease (CHD), the result of structural changes to the heart present at birth, is the most common congenital birth condition. As survival rates for infants with complex CHD have increased in recent years, risk for neurodevelopmental challenges has also increased. Early referral to developmentally supportive care is recommended as…

Animal studies demonstrate that maternal touch and contact regulate infant stress, and handling during periods of maternal deprivation attenuates the stress response. To measure the effects of touch on infant stress reactivity during simulated maternal deprivation, 53 dyads were tested in two paradigms: still-face (SF) and still-face with maternal…

The Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) are parent-report screening tools to identify infants at risk of developmental difficulties. The purpose of this study was to examine validity and internal reliability of the fine motor developmental area of the ASQ, 2nd edition (ASQ2-FM) for screening 12-month-old infants following major surgery. The…

Research demonstrated successful discrimination in twenty 6-week-old infants when cardiac rate responses were employed in a no-delay rather than in the conventional discrete trials paradigm. (Author/SB)

Cardiac response to stimulation of the left and right perioral region in infants was examined. Cardiac acceleration and ipsilateral head turning occurred more reliably to stimulation of the infant's right side than to stimulation of the left side. Results reflect a difference in sensitivity at the infant's two sides. (SDH)

Explored relation between temperament and cardiac vagal tone in 12-week olds. Found that infants with higher baseline vagal tone showed fewer negative behaviors in the laboratory and were less disrupted by experimental procedures than infants with lower baselines. Infants who decreased cardiac vagal tone during assessments were rated by mothers as…

This report is one of a regular series on the status and progress of studies on the nature of speech, instrumentation for its investigation, and practical applications. The ten papers treat the following topics: speech synthesis as a tool for the study of speech production; the study of articulatory organization; phonetic perception; cardiac…

In an attempt to assess the status of the object concept, visual fixation and cardiac deceleration were recorded for 36 infants, 20-24 weeks old, during three kinds of events in which objects moving on a linear trajectory were temporarily occluded by a screen: (1) a familiar object appeared on both sides of the screen; (2) a novel object appeared…

To examine the ontogeny of emotion-attention interactions, we investigated whether infants exhibit adult-like biases in automatic and voluntary attentional processes towards fearful facial expressions. Heart rate and saccadic eye movements were measured from 7-month-old infants (n = 42) while viewing non-face control stimuli, and neutral, happy,…

Examined cardiac activity during the first 13 months of life. Indexes of cardiac activity changed in an orderly way with development. There were intercorrelations among the cardiac measures. Analyses indicated that measures of heart-rate variability were significantly higher in insecure children than in secure children. (BC)

The form of the cardiac reaction to the novel stimulus was regarded as support for an attentional interpretation of cardiac deceleration. (Author)

Four groups of infants, 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 months of age, were presented with repeated speech stimuli which were synthesized exemplars of the sound, "baba," natural exemplars of "baba" or "kaba," or novel syllables on each trial. (RH)

The study investigated the dynamic relation between contingency learning and heart rate with risk and non-risk babies 5- to 10-months-old. Four groups were compared in a two contingency treatments (contingent, yoked) x two risk status design. Concurrent heart rate was monitored during three phases of a contingency learning task (baseline,…

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate cognitive and motor development in children with major congenital anomalies and the predictability of development at age 5 years. Method: A prospective, longitudinal follow-up study was undertaken. The Dutch version of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development--Mental Developmental Index (MDI) and…