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PubMed2004

The behavior and routes of lead exposure in pregrasping infants.

Understanding the routes of lead exposure in a very young infant is an essential precursor to identifying effective strategies for minimizing blood-lead (PbB) levels throughout infancy. The present study integrated observational data, lead-loading data, and household airborne particulate levels <10 microm (PM(10)) to understand the broad patterns of lead exposure in infants from Port Pirie, South Australia. Seven, 2-19-week-old infants were observed between three and six times, for 3-9 h per visit, at intervals of 1-9 weeks. Household lead-loading and PM(10) data were collected for five of the families. Eight objects were observed in an infant's mouth, but only the infant's fingers, pacifier, and nipple of the mother's breast or teat of a bottle were observed in an infant's mouth for an average of more than 1% of an observation day. The objects most frequently put in an infant's mouth were their own fingers or their pacifier. Synthesizing our data on behavioral frequency, lead loading, and the surface area of contact, and using estimates of dose response, and sampling, transfer, and absorption efficiencies, the results suggest that a 4-month-old infant could absorb up to 4 microg of lead a day (equivalent to a PbB level of up to about 2.4 microg/dl) by mouthing their fingers, about two-thirds of all exposure routes identified in this study. Estimates also suggest that lead uptake via inhalation accounts for about 0.5-3% of an infant's PbB at 5 microg/dl. If our estimates reflect real routes and values, the majority of the average PbB level of 6-month-old infants in Port Pirie during 2002 could potentially be accounted for by the normal infant and family behaviors observed in this study. While the current level of concern is 10 microg/dl, recent studies indicate no safe threshold for Pb exposure, and so interventions for reducing chronic low-level exposure are useful. We suggest that home-based interventions for reducing Pb exposure should focus on maintaining low Pb loadings on objects that are directly associated with an infant, and outside objects that have few transfer steps to the infant.

Cohort Studies↗
PubMed1995

Individualized developmental care for very-low-birth-weight premature infants.

Forty very-low-birth-weight neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) infants with birth weights < or = 1,250 g were randomly assigned to treatment or control groups. Behavior of the treatment infants was systematically evaluated, and individualized developmentally oriented care plans were implemented to enhance stability. Treatment babies required fewer days of intermittent mandatory ventilation and continuous positive airway pressure and achieved full enteral feedings sooner. Length of hospital stay and hospital charges were less for treatment than control infants. There were favorable effects on treatment infants' behavioral performance at 42 weeks' postconceptional age. These results support the hypothesis that behaviorally sensitive, developmentally oriented care improves medical and neurodevelopmental outcome in the NICU.

Hospital Charges↗
PubMed1992

Selected physiologic measures and behavior during paternal skin contact with Colombian preterm infants.

A descriptive study of eleven healthy preterm infants was conducted in which cardiorespiratory (heart and respiratory rates, oxygen saturation), thermal (abdominal, toe and tympanic temperatures) and state behavior responses to two hours of paternal skin-to-skin contact within the first 17 hours of birth in Colombia, South America were evaluated. Infant physiologic and behavioral state measures were recorded each minute as was paternal skin temperature and behavior. Infant heart and respiratory rates increased during paternal contact as did abdominal and core temperatures. Fathers were able to keep their infants sufficiently warm, and five infants became hyperthermic (tympanic temperature greater than 37.5 degrees C) despite cooling measures while being held in this climate. Infants slept most of the time while being held and fathers seldom gazed at, spoke to, or touched their infants while holding them. When mothers are unavailable, fathers may be an alternate source of warmth and comfort to infants.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Relationship of maternal behavioral style to the development of organically impaired mentally retarded infants.

The relationship of maternal behavioral style to the cognitive developmental status of 60, 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old organically impaired, mentally retarded children was investigated. Eighteen global maternal behaviors and four child behaviors were rated on a 10-minute video tape of mother-child play. A factor analysis of the maternal behavioral items revealed three major parameters of behavior. Child-Oriented/Maternal Pleasure was related positively, whereas Quantity of Stimulation and Control were related negatively to Children's Bayley Mental Development scores. Maternal behavioral style was not related to either the ratings of the children's behavior or to the children's current health status and family SES, but was related to the amount of time children had been in intervention programs. Findings were discussed in terms of their implications for intervention with mothers and their retarded infants.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2006

Contingency, imitation, and affect sharing: Foundations of infants' social awareness.

Predictions about the role of contingency, imitation, and affect sharing in the development of social awareness were tested in infants during natural, imitative, and yoked conditions with their mothers at 5 and 13 weeks of age. Results showed that at both ages, infants of highly attuned mothers gazed, smiled, and vocalized positively more during the natural than during the imitative and yoked conditions, whereas they increased negative vocalizations during the yoked conditions. In contrast, infants of less attuned mothers did not differentiate between the conditions, except at 13 weeks when these infants increased their gazes during the imitative condition. Whereas contingency and imitation draw infant attention to conspecifics, affective communication appears to lay the foundation for infants' social awareness.

Affect↗
PubMed2000

Morbid hypocalcemia associated with phosphate enema in a six-week-old infant.

A 6-week-old premature infant who was born at 29 weeks of gestation presented to the emergency department with a several-hour history of stiffness and increased alarms on his apnea monitor at home. On arrival he was noted to have generalized seizures, apnea, and bradycardia. He was intubated and required cardiopulmonary resuscitation including chest compressions and medications. After stabilization he was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit for further management. His initial laboratory tests revealed a serum calcium level of 2.4 mg/dL (normal range: 8.4-10.2 mg/dL) and a serum phosphorus level of 28.5 mg/dL (normal range: 2.4-4.5 mg/dL). During the first week of admission, the infant's mother reported that she had administered a full pediatric Fleets enema (CB Fleet Company Inc, Lynchburg, VA) to him. The infant was discharged after 12 days of hospitalization. Anticipatory guidance on the stool patterns and behavior of infants can prevent misconceptions about constipation that are especially prevalent in new parents. Proper management of constipation, should it arise, should be addressed with all parents at early well-child visits to avoid hazardous complications of treatments. hypocalcemia, seizures, premature infants, enema.

Apnea↗
PubMed2005

Cocaine exposure is associated with subtle compromises of infants' and mothers' social-emotional behavior and dyadic features of their interaction in the face-to-face still-face paradigm.

Prenatal cocaine and opiate exposure are thought to subtly compromise social and emotional development. The authors observed a large sample of 236 cocaine-exposed and 459 nonexposed infants (49 were opiate exposed and 646 nonexposed) with their mothers in the face-to-face still-face paradigm. Infant and maternal behaviors were microanalytically coded. No opiate-exposure effects were detected. However, mothers of cocaine-exposed infants showed more negative engagement than other mothers. The cocaine-exposed dyads also showed higher overall levels of mismatched engagement states than other dyads, including more negative engagement when the infants were in states of neutral engagement. Infants exposed to heavier levels of cocaine showed more passive-withdrawn negative engagement and engaged in more negative affective matching with their mothers than other infants. Although effect sizes were small, cocaine exposure, especially heavy cocaine exposure, was associated with subtly negative interchanges, which may have a cumulative impact on infants' later development and their relationships with their mothers.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Parent-infant interactions among families with alcoholic fathers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between fathers' alcoholism and the quality of parent-infant interactions during free play. A related goal was to study the potential mediating or moderating role of comorbid parental psychopathology, such as depression and antisocial behavior, difficult infant temperament, and parental aggression. The sample consisted of 204 families with 12-month-old infants (104 alcoholic and 100 control families), recruited from New York State birth records. Results indicated that fathers' alcoholism was associated with a number of other risk factors (depression, antisocial behavior, and family aggression). Fathers' alcoholism was also associated with more negative father-infant interactions as indicated by lower paternal sensitivity, positive affect, verbalizations, higher negative affect, and lower infant responsiveness among alcoholic fathers. As expected, fathers' depression mediated the relationship between fathers' alcoholism and sensitivity, while maternal depression mediated the association between maternal alcohol problems and maternal sensitivity. Parents' psychopathology did not moderate the association between alcoholism and parent-infant interactions. The results from the present study suggest that the origins of risk for later maladjustment among children of alcoholic fathers are apparent as early as infancy and highlight the role of comorbid parental risk factors.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Behavioral and immunological consequences of brief mother-infant separation: a species comparison.

The immediate behavioral and immunological consequences of a single 2-week maternal separation experience were studied in socially housed 7-month old bonnet and pigtail macaques. Maternal separation was associated with species dependent behavioral changes. Both species showed significant increases in ingestive behaviors associated with separation. Separated and matched controls showed an increase in disturbance behaviors (vocalization, startles, shaking, temper-tantrums) that subsided after 24-36 hours in control subjects, but continued, albeit with species-dependent patterns, in the separated monkeys. Allomaternal care of the separated bonnet infants but not the pigtail infants was associated with a progressive reduction of these disturbance behaviors during the separation period. Following a period of agitation, pigtail infants showed a depressive phase characterized by slouched, withdrawn postures and reduced motor activity. As a group, the separated infants of both species were not different from controls with respect to lymphocyte activation by mitogens, a measure of immunocompetence. However, when individual behavioral responses were considered, the change in lymphocyte activation during separation was significantly related to behavioral responses which reflected disturbance, such that the change in lymphocyte activation following in vitro stimulation with the mitogens phytohemagglutinin and Concanavalin A (markers of the immunocompetence of T lymphocytes) was related to levels of vocalization and time spent in slouched postures. The activation of B lymphocytes by pokeweed mitogen was not influenced by the separation experience nor was it associated with specific behavioral responses to separation. The importance of assessing the affective consequences of stressor is discussed.

Animals↗
PubMed1984

Intrinsic characteristics of activity: a comment on Kent's psychobiology.

Kent has made seven statements that should inspire responses from linguists, kinesiologists, and developmentalists, among others. His goal of reforming our current theoretical perspective on the development of speech will be accomplished, in part, by their corrections, elaborations, and further speculations. Not all of his statements have the same status or consequence for an evolving theory of development. Those on the anatomic and neurological differences between infants and adults are much less controversial than those on the initial separateness of the perception and production systems or those on the relation of rhythmic behavior to phonology. Across all the statements, two major topics merit discussion: 1) the relevant descriptive terms of the vocal behavior of infants and 2) the relation of vocal activity to other behavior.

Child Development↗
PubMed1986

Attention and organization of behavior in high-risk infants.

Preterm infants at 7 months, corrected age, and 7-month-old full-term infants were videotaped while they played with a series of novel objects for a minute apiece. Each infant's videotape was scored for duration of examining (focused visual inspection), duration of mouthing, and duration of slapping or banging the objects. Full-term infants examined the objects significantly more than the preterms; the two groups showed equivalent levels of mouthing and banging. Each minute was then divided into 15-second segments. Only examining showed a decline over time, and then only for the full-terms. When the three behaviors were compared on the latency to the first episode of the behavior in each trial, it was found that the behavior of the full-terms was clearly differentiated in terms of sequence with examining having the shortest latency, mouthing the next shortest, and banging the longest. For the preterms, however, there were no differences among the mean latencies. The major difference between the two groups was in the latency to examine, which was significantly longer in the preterms. In general, the results for the preterms were not related to developmental level, but appeared to be due to deficits in both reactivity to stimulation and ability to sustain attention.

Attention↗
PubMed2025

Examining Behavioral Interventions for Infancy and Early Toddlerhood: A Systematic Review of Intervention Effects, Parameters, and Participants.

Rapid advancement is paving the way to identify children who would likely benefit from early intervention during the first years of life, prior to the onset of significant delays in development. With the widely acknowledged benefits of early intervention, key questions arise: Does behavioral intervention targeted to infancy and early toddlerhood improve developmental outcomes? What procedures might be used, and under what circumstances? Who do these interventions work for? The current review comprehensively examined the literature on behavioral interventions based in operant learning, focused on key developmental areas with children in the first two years of life. We located and synthesized 69 studies with unique participant cohorts that included 1735 children. The search revealed many studies focused on the first year of life, of which a large proportion investigated approaches to increase communication. We provide implications, limitations, and future directions on how behavioral interventions for infants and young toddlers can inform current practice and future intervention research this population.

Humans↗
PubMed1994

Imitation and action in autism: a critical review.

This article considers the evidence for an imitative deficit in autism and for the possible role of deficiencies in the representation of actions. An argument is developed for the claim that the imitation problem is diagnostic of a basic information-processing rather than a social dysfunction. Reviews are offered of the empirical literature on gestural imitation in autism (and other developmental disorders) and the more anecdotal evidence for problems in the domain of action development in autism. An account that may help to integrate these areas is suggested, as are directions for future research.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed2006

Maternal and paternal gentle guidance and young children's compliance from a within-family perspective.

Young children's early internalization was examined from a within-family perspective. Mothers, fathers, 16-month-old toddlers, and their older siblings from 59 families participated in a family cleanup paradigm to assess young children's compliance and parental guidance. Sibling age differences in compliant and noncompliant behavior were found, with older siblings using more committed compliance and refusal than toddler siblings. Mothers used more gentle guidance with children than did fathers, and both parents used more gentle guidance with older siblings than with toddler siblings. Examining within-family processes indicated that maternal and paternal gentle guidance interacted to predict older and toddler siblings' committed compliance and explained unique variance in the older and toddler siblings' compliance. Some support was found for differential maternal guidance as a within-family process responsible for the development of young children's early self-regulation that may also vary between families.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Conversational replies of children with specific language impairment.

Conversational replies were examined in two groups of children with comparable vocabularies and speech limited to single-word utterances: children with specific language impairment, ages 2:10 to 3:6 (years:months); and children, ages 1:5 to 1:11, who were developing language normally. In interactions with adults the language-impaired children produced a greater number and variety of replies to both questions and statements than the normal-language children. The findings suggest that language-impaired children can serve as responsive conversationalists when syntactic skill is not a factor and that comprehension, world knowledge, and/or experience with conversations permit considerable variability in conversational skill even within the same level of expressive language ability.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMed1995

Associations among adult attachment representations, maternal sensitivity, and infant-mother attachment in a sample of adolescent mothers.

Associations among adolescent attachment organization, maternal sensitivity, and infant attachment organization were examined prospectively in 74 teenaged mother-infant dyads. Pregnant teenagers' attachment organizations predicted both sensitivity and infant-mother attachments. Mothers classified autonomous (F) in the prenatal period showed higher levels of sensitivity at both 3 and 9 months than mothers classified dismissing (Ds), preoccupied (E), or unresolved (U). Correspondence between maternal attachment (F vs. Ds/E/U) and infant attachment (secure [B] vs. avoidant [A]/resistant [C]/disorganized [D]) was observed in 58 of 74 (78%) dyads. Exact 4-group (Ds/E/F/U and A/B/C/D) agreement was observed in 50 of 74 (68%) families. In contrast, associations between maternal sensitivity and infant attachment were not significant, leading to questions about the processes that link attachment representations, maternal behavior, and infant attachment in adolescent mothers.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Decreasing the risk of complicated bereavement and future psychiatric disorders in children.

TOPIC: Decreasing the risk of complicated bereavement and future psychiatric disorders in children. PURPOSE: This literature will determine what major factors influence a child's response to death and to understand how children react to the death of a parent at different developmental stages. It will evaluate the following: a) What are children's emotional responses to the death of a parent? b) How can a surviving parent help the grieving child complete the tasks of grieving? c) What skills are important for a parent to learn in order to help the grieving child through the tasks of grieving and d) How can mental health providers help the grieving family and the grieving child? SOURCES: Relevant literature from child psychiatry, child psychology, and nursing. CONCLUSIONS: The death of a parent is a major stressful event for children and their families. This traumatic event can bring serious psychological and social distress to bereaved children and their families. Children who are not supported in the early phases of grieving can develop serious emotional and behavioral problems that can lead to the development of some major psychiatric disorders. Providing early prevention support programs for surviving parents and bereaved children can help both the parents and the children adapt to their losses. These structured programs can decrease the risk of complicated grief in bereaved families. More research studies are needed to validate the effectiveness of these early prevention program interventions.

Adolescent↗