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Behavioral treatment of drug exposed infants: analyzing and treating aggression.
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A note on selective imitation by a six-week-old infant.
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Behavioral and physiological responses of mother and infant squirrel monkeys to fearful stimuli.
The behavioral and adrenocortical responses of feral squirrel monkey mothers and their laboratory-born infants were measured following exposure to a live snake and to a flying predator model (hawk). The dyads were either socially or individually housed. The different stimuli were presented above the home cage for 1 hr; behaviors were observed during this period. Blood samples were obtained at the end of the test session and assayed for cortisol. The results indicated that individually housed dyads markedly increased their time spent in contact and their avoidance of the stimuli, and showed increased levels of cortisol when exposed to the snake or hawk model. Socially reared monkeys responded only to the snake. Thus, the presence of social partners ameliorated the response to the hawk model. The marked increase in contact during the presentation of the fear-eliciting stimuli may be partly responsible for the infants' response.
The development of structure and function in the postnatal human cerebral cortex from birth to 72 months: changes in thickness of layers II and III co-relate to the onset of new age-specific behaviors.
HYPOTHESIS: The thickness of a cortical layer is a composite measure of neuronal, axonal, dendritic, synaptic, and glial numbers and sizes that may relate to thefunction of a cortical area. METHODS: 35 age-specific behaviors with defined cortical localization whose onset lies between birth and 72 months were selected. Each behavior's function localized to one or more of 12 cytoarchitectonic areas (Brodmann areas 4, with homuncular subdivisions for leg, trunk, face, and hand, plus 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24, 36, and 37). Data on cortical thickness for each layer of 41 cytoarchitectonic areas (including the 12 above) of the postnatal human cerebral cortex from birth of 72 months were analyzed for general patterns of change. For the 12 cortical areas functionally related to theage-specific behaviors, we searched for layer thickness changes that co-related to when the behaviors began. RESULTS: Without exception, all layers of the 41 cortical areas of the postnatal human cerebral cortex studied develop through a series of repeated thinning and thickening in a wave-like fashion. With regard to the co-relation of behavioral onset and changes in cortical layer thickness, from birth to 15 months, only layer II has agreater than expected frequency of being the layer with the greatest relative change in thickness (relative to its previous value). From 15 to 72 months, only layer IlI has a greater than expected frequency of being the layer with the greatest absolute change in thickness (81% involved a change in its direction of growth (thinning <--> thickening)). The co-occurrence of directional growth change and having the greatest layer thickness change were only statistically significant for layer III when an age-specific behavior began and was not seen for the 41 cortical areas overall (p = 0.014). CONCLUSIONS: Cortical laminar development exhibits aprocess that is mathematically consistent with a random walk with drift and with boundaries so that uncontrolled proliferation and pruning are prevented. The directional changes in layer growth could be controlled by feedback coupled with growth promoting and growth inhibiting factors. Layer II, with its function of establishing local corticocortical connections, appears to be most important in establishing age-specific behaviors of infants from birth to 15 months. Such a process tends to produce relatively simpler behaviors. LayerIII, with its function of establishing longer distance corticocortical connections, appears to be most important in establishing age-specific behaviors of children from 15 to 72 months. This process tends to produce richer, more cross-modal behaviors than those mediated primarily by local corticocortical interactions.
A developmental approach to the management of children with sleep disturbances in the first three years of life.
A developmental approach to the management of sleep disturbances was successful in 85% (44/52) of the children (aged 2-36 months) within 2-6 weeks. No drugs were used. The approach was based on the following two principles: taking into account the characteristics of sleep behavior in infants and young children by setting up seven rules of normal sleep behavior, and dealing with the expectations and anxieties of the parents by means of a sleep chart.
Implications of sex differences in neonatal temperament for early risk and developmental/environmental interactions.
Sex differences in neonatal temperament were examined in 30 pairs of full-term, opposite-sex twins. Behavior was assessed during feeding, during sleep, while awake for orienting responses, in response to a stressor, and for measures of spontaneous irritability and soothability. Composite and summary scales described irritability, resistance to soothing, reactivity, reinforcement value of the infant's behavior, activity during sleep, and activity while awake. Analyses of variance of paired comparisons performed separately for each behavioral area indicated that female neonates were more irritable and more difficult to soothe than male neonates. The results are discussed in terms of maturational effects on neonatal behavior, implications for infant-caregiver interaction, and their relation to environmental influences on development.
Using the neonatal behavioral assessment scale to evaluate premature infants.
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Consistency and change in the behavior of rhesus macaque abusive mothers with successive infants.
This study investigated the abusive behavior and parenting styles of 7 rhesus macaque mothers with infants born in 2 consecutive years. All subjects lived in captive social groups and were observed during the first 12 weeks of infant life. With the exception of 1 individual, mothers were generally consistent in the frequency with which they abused their successive infants. Similarities were also found in the temporal course of infant abuse, the use of the most common pattern of abuse, and some measures of parenting style, notably those reflecting maternal protectiveness. The findings of this study are discussed in relation to different hypothesized relationships between infant abuse and parenting style in macaques.
Behavioral state activity during nipple feedings for preterm infants.
The purpose of this research was to examine the effect of behavioral state activity during nipple feeding on feeding success for a group of 20 preterm infants. The infants, fed per hospital policy at scheduled three-hour intervals, were observed during four early nipple feedings. Nine of the 20 infants were able to successfully nipple their four nipple feedings; the other 11 infants were unable to successfully complete their nipple feedings. The 9 successful feeders exhibited significantly more awake behavior during feeding than unsuccessful feeders (F = 7.82; p = .012). The unsuccessful feeders spent 53 percent of their feeding in sleep states; successful feeders were in sleep states only 30 percent of their feeding time. Along with other research, these findings suggest that infant behavioral state may be a key consideration for nipple feeding success in preterm infants.
Infants with "Colic"-mothers' perspectives on the crying problem.
OBJECTIVES: This study was designed to evaluate relationships between infant crying behavior and fussing behavior and the mother's causal attributions of the crying, her emotional responses to the crying, as well as her later perception of infant temperament. METHODS: Twenty mothers who presented their 3-9-week-old infants in pediatric practices because of excessive crying ("colic complaint group") and 20 mothers who visited for public preventive screening ("control group") were compared. Mothers kept a "baby diary." A highly structured interview with the mothers was conducted. When the babies were 4 months old, mothers completed a temperament questionnaire. The colic complaint group was subdivided using the Wessel criteria. RESULTS: Infants from the colic complaint group who did not meet these criteria did not differ from control subjects in any of the parameters derived from the diaries. However, the mothers of this group described significantly heightened negative affect and cognitions of being rejected in response to the crying. In contrast, mothers of infants who conformed to Wessel's definition, and thereby far exceeded the other subjects in crying duration, did not differ from control mothers in respect of the aforementioned feelings and cognitions. Mothers' "negative affect and feelings of being rejected" were associated with the perception of high negative emotionality 4 months later. CONCLUSION: In regard to the colic problem, attention must be paid not only to the characteristics of the child, but also to aspects of maternal perception and processing of the crying problem.
Assessment of stereopsis in human infants.
A new method for testing stereopsis in infants is described for use in the early assessment of binocular function. Four 6- and 12-month-old infants were presented with a dynamic random-element stereogram generated on a color television monitor. A stereoscopic form was moved laterally, either left or right, to elicit the visual attention of the infant. An observer, unaware of the direction of form movement, made a forced-choice judgment of the direction of form displacement based on information gleaned from observations of the infant's behavior. The observer's performance for all three age groups exceeded chance levels of responding (p < 0.001). Individual infants within each age group also provided strong evidence of stereopsis. The applicability of the method for the screening of binocular anomalies is discussed.
Behaviorally functional opioid systems in infant rats: II. Evidence for pharmacological, physiological, and psychological mediation of pain and stress.
In order to determine the behavioral characteristics of the neonatal opioid system during distressful situations, a modification of the hot-plate paw-lick test used on adults was developed for infant rats. Ten-day-old pups were analgesic to heat following morphine administration. Pretreatment with an opioid antagonist prevented the analgesia. Morphine analgesia was significantly greater in pups group isolated from the dam. Saline control pups group isolated from the dam exhibited longer latencies than their nest-housed siblings. Individual isolation for 5 min increased paw-withdrawal latency markedly. This was also naltrexone reversible. This analgesia was not seen when pups were tested directly from the nest or when grouped with other pups for the 5 min. It is suggested that the opioid system(s) for stress and pain are functional in Day 10 rats and short-term isolation from the dam is a probable natural stressor that is modulated by endogenous opioid release.
Neurophysiologic evaluation of early cognitive development in high-risk infants and toddlers.
New knowledge of the perceptual, discriminative, and memory capabilities of very young infants has opened the door to further evaluation of these abilities in infants who have risk factors for cognitive impairments. A neurophysiologic technique that has been very useful in this regard is the recording of event-related potentials (ERPs). The event-related potential (ERP) technique is widely used by cognitive neuroscientists to study cognitive abilities such as discrimination, attention, and memory. This method has many attractive attributes for use in infants and children as it is relatively inexpensive, does not require sedation, has excellent temporal resolution, and can be used to evaluate early cognitive development in preverbal infants with limited behavioral repertories. In healthy infants and children, ERPs have been used to gain a further understanding of early cognitive development and the effect of experience on brain function. Recently, ERPs have been used to elucidate atypical memory development in infants of diabetic mothers, difficulties with perception and discrimination of speech sounds in infants at risk for dyslexia, and multiple areas of cognitive differences in extremely premature infants. Atypical findings seen in high-risk infants have correlated with later cognitive outcomes, but the sensitivity and specificity of the technique has not been studied, and thus evaluation of individual infants is not possible at this time. With further research, this technique may be very useful in identifying children with cognitive deficits during infancy. Because even young infants can be examined with ERPs, this technique is likely to be helpful in the development of focused early intervention programs used to improve cognitive function in high-risk infants and toddlers.
[On perception behavior of the 8-to-10-week old infant].
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Observations on the nature of human relatedness.
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Novel primitive swallowing reflex: facial receptor distribution and stimulus characteristics.
We recently described a primitive swallowing reflex: swallowing as a response to a puff of air administered to the face. To identify the facial afferent distribution of this response, the necessary characteristics of the stimulus, and the role of the infant's antecedent behavior, we studied 13 infants who had demonstrated this reflex. We evaluated nine infants by clinically observing for swallowing in response to a total of 135 stimulus applications. All nine had consistently positive responses to the maxillary-ophthalmic area and to the maxillary-mandibular area. Two had consistent responses to stimulation of the mandibular area alone; these were positive. Six had consistent responses to stimulation of the ophthalmic area alone; these were negative. Four infants, evaluated by manometric documentation of swallowing (a total of 137 stimulus applications) demonstrated 47 of 79 (59%) positive responses to stimuli applied to facial areas including any parts of the lips, but only 7 of 28 (25%) positive responses to stimuli applied to facial areas excluding all parts of the lips (chi-square P = 0.002). Light touch to any facial area, including the cornea, failed to produce a swallow in any infant. Crying and sleep were incompatible with the reflex. This newly identified primitive swallow reflex seems to require diffuse stimulation, possibly thermal, to the perioral area of the face in an awake and noncrying infant.
The emergence and basis of endogenous attention in infancy and early childhood.
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