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Community-oriented oral health promotion for infants in Jerusalem: evaluation of a program trial.

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to measure the effect of a community health education program on reported infants' bottle-feeding practices and infants' toothbrushing behavior, with or without distribution of toothpaste and toothbrushes. METHODS: In this quasi-experimental comparison group design study conducted in mother and child health centers in Jerusalem, parents of 727 children were surveyed by telephone at baseline and six months later. The cohort of infants was aged 6-12 months at baseline. The program group received structured health education. The control group received no organized educational intervention. Within the program and control groups, half of the centers were randomly given toothpaste and toothbrushes. RESULTS: Parents' reports revealed a secular 32.5 percent increase in toothbrushing for infants with no intervention, 45.1 percent for infants only receiving toothpaste and toothbrushes, 43.7 percent for infants only receiving the health education program, and a 60.4 percent increase for infants receiving health education together with toothpaste and toothbrushes (chi-square, P = .0002). Modification of bottle-drinking practices, in this program, was unsuccessful. CONCLUSION: The free distribution of toothpaste and toothbrushes, together with an oral health education program, is recommended as a potentially practical and effective method of promoting early oral hygiene practices.

Arabs↗

Effects of prematurity and early intervention on responsivity to tactual stimuli: a comparison of preterm and full-term infants.

Cardiac and behavioral responses to a tactual stimulus were evaluated during the first sleep cycle for 3 groups of infants: 30 full terms, 30 nonintervened preterms, and 30 intervened preterms. Prior to testing, the latter group had received a regimen of multimodal sensory stimulation, which emphasized the tactual and vestibular modalities. The results showed that the intervention altered the preterms' sensory functioning mainly during active sleep. In this state, the full terms and the intervened preterms exhibited a significant cardiac acceleration to the stimulus, while the nonintervened preterms failed to do so. Similarly, the behavioral response of the intervened preterm more closely approximated that of the full terms. During quiet sleep the intervention did not affect either the cardiac or the behavioral response. In this sleep state, the full terms' cardiac response was that of monophasic acceleration, whereas both groups of preterms exhibited a biphasic response with a smaller initial acceleration which was followed by a deceleration below baseline. Behaviorally, the preterms responded less frequently and gave smaller responses than the full terms. Thus there were marked differences between preterms and full terms, and the intervention seemed to narrow this gap to some extent.

Female↗

Generalized imitation in infants.

Effects of modeling and contingent praise on infant's motor response topographies were experimentally analyzed. Three 10-month-old male infants and their mothers participated in 20-min. experimental sessions two to four times a week for 2 to 7 months. During each session a mother presented her infant with 15 toys randomly selected from a pool of 45. The infant was allowed to play with each toy for 1 min. During treatment the mother modeled prescribed responses with each toy, and during 10 training trials per session, she praised her infant if he emitted topographically similar responses. Interspersed among training trials were five probe trials for which praise was seldom available. All three infants showed systematic increases in the targeted training and probe response topographies following the introduction of the modeling and praise treatment procedure. Thus, responding during probes demonstrated generalized imitation with infants, a new and developmentally important population.

Generalization, Psychological↗

Analysis of pronominal errors: a case-study.

The present paper reports a case-study of a normally developing boy who made pronominal errors for about ten months. Comprehension and production of first- and second-person pronouns were longitudinally examined from 1;7 to 2;10 to test three hypotheses concerning pronominal errors: pronominal errors are a result of either (a) semantic confusion, (b) simple imitation, or (c) confusion between self and others. The results showed that the child began using first- and second-person pronouns at about 1;8 and mastered the correct usage by 2;10. Consistent errors for the first- and the second-person pronouns were observed from 1;11 to 2;4, but proportions of errors occurring in his imitative language were low. The comprehension and production data clearly indicated that the child persistently made pronominal errors due to semantic confusion. That is, first-person pronouns referred to a person with whom the child conversed and second-person pronouns referred to himself.

Child Language↗

Stress responses of child care providers to classroom activities and childhood behaviors involving HIV/AIDS.

Child care providers in a southeastern state were asked to indicate their level of stress when responding to classroom activities and childhood behaviors involving a child who tests positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). No significant correlations were found between the providers' stress responses and their professional background. Significant correlations were found between the providers' stress responses and their knowledge of HIV transmission and agreement with HIV child care policies. Follow up chi-square analysis revealed that a majority of providers reported low to slight stress when considering individual classroom activities in association with an HIV-positive (HIV+) child. Likewise, a significant majority of the providers reported low to slight stress when considering low-threat behaviors associated with an HIV+ child. In contrast, a significant majority of the providers reported moderate to great stress when considering high-threat behaviors associated with an HIV+ child. Implications of these findings are addressed for nurse educators who provide training to child care providers regarding young children who are HIV+.

Adult↗

Parental sensitivity, infant affect, and affect regulation: predictors of later attachment.

This longitudinal study on 94 families examined the extent to which parent sensitivity, infant affect, and affect regulation at 4 months predicted mother-infant and father-infant attachment classifications at 1 year. Parent sensitivity was rated from face-to-face interaction episodes; infant affect and regulatory behaviors were rated from mother-infant and father-infant still-face episodes at 4 months. Infants' attachment to mothers and fathers was rated from the Strange Situation at 12 and 13 months. MANOVAs indicated that 4-month parent and infant factors were associated with infant-mother but not infant-father attachment groups. Discriminant Function Analysis further indicated that two functions, "Affect Regulation" and "Maternal Sensitivity," discriminated infant-mother attachment groups; As and B1-B2s showed more affect regulation toward mothers and fathers than B3-B4s and Cs at 4 months, and mothers of both secure groups were more sensitive than mothers of Cs. Finally, the association between maternal sensitivity and infant-mother attachment was partially mediated by infant affect regulation.

Adult↗

Relational and behavioral interventions with economically disadvantaged toddlers.

Matched groups of children, ages 12-24 months, referred for early social or verbal developmental lags or home-environment problems, participated either in a center-based "relational" or a home-based "behavior modification" intervention. Although both programs accelerated youngsters' intellectual development, there were few differences between groups on the criterion change measures.

Behavior Therapy↗

The relationship between child temperament and early childhood caries.

PURPOSE: Among the potential risk factors associated with nursing caries/baby bottle tooth decay--a subset of Early Childhood Caries (ECC)--is a "strong-tempered" behavioral style in the child. However, the few empirical studies that have investigated this description remain controversial. The research goal of this study was to operationalize the "strong-tempered" profile and investigate its association to parental feeding practices and ECC levels. METHODS: In an observational-correlational study design, 58 children (ASA I), ages 18 to 70 months (M = 43 months, SD = 17), were reliably assessed for ECC levels by a clinical evaluator. A second evaluator, blind to ECC status, interviewed parents using a demographic survey, a feeding practices measure, and the EAS Temperament Survey for Children. RESULTS: Multiple regression analyses indicated that none of the four temperament factors (Emotionality, Activity, Sociability, and Shyness) significantly predicted duration of feeding habit defined as the length of time in months that the child breast or bottle fed, whichever lasted the longest. However, the combination of greater duration of feeding habit and higher levels of Shyness predicted all three measures of ECC: the presence or absence of caries (r2 = .19, P < .001), the number of carious teeth (r2 = .23, P < .001) and the number of carious surfaces (r2 = .21, P < .001). Furthermore, the addition of Native status significantly increased the predictive value of all of three models (r2 = .37, r2 = .43, r2 = .29, respectively, Ps < .0001). CONCLUSION: Temperament did not predict the duration of feeding habit but together, shyness and duration of feeding habit was associated with ECC.

Bottle Feeding↗

Verbal operants in mothers' speech to nonretarded and Down's syndrome children matched for linguistic level.

Verbal response classes produced by mothers speaking to 21 nonretarded children were compared with those of mothers speaking to 21 Down's syndrome children matched with them on mean length of utterance. As mean length of utterance increased, total verbal response classes increased for both groups of mothers and children. Nonretarded children and their mothers produced more echoics; retarded children and their mothers produced more intraverbals. The implications of these findings were discussed in relation to previous research and the teaching of language.

Child↗

Actigraphic monitoring of the activity-rest behavior of preterm and full-term infants at 20 months of age.

Differences in the activity-rest behavior of preterm and full-term infants provide an important contribution to the analysis of the ontogeny of circadian rhythms. In this study, we recorded the activity-rest behavior of 17 preterm and 8 full-term infants at the approximate age of 20 months over an average of 10 days by means of actigraphic monitoring (Actiwatch, Cambridge Neurotechnology Ltd.). At the same time, the parents of the infants kept a daily diary. The activity-rest rhythm, the nighttime sleep duration, the daytime rest duration, as well as the sleep quality of the infants were analyzed. Preterm and full-term infants at the age of 20 months show a circadian rhythm with a period length between 23 h 32 min (23:32 h) and 24 h 23 min (24:23 h). It can be concluded that the preterm and full-term infants all reached a vital developmental step by showing the dominant circadian rhythm in the spectrum. The daytime rest duration of preterm infants is significantly shorter than that of full-term infants. The sleep quality of preterm infants is significantly lower than that of full-term infants, which means that the preterm infants have a larger percentage of less restful nighttime sleep. In other studies preterm infants show an over-proportional frequency of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). For this reason, future analyses should reveal whether or not actigraphic monitoring is a suitable means for an early identification of activity-rest behavior in children who may develop ADHD.

Activity Cycles↗

Heritability of fearful-anxious endophenotypes in infant rhesus macaques: a preliminary report.

BACKGROUND: Research efforts to discover the genetic underpinnings of anxiety and depression is challenging because of the etiologic heterogeneity inherent to these disorders. These efforts might be aided by the study of related behavioral phenotypes in model organisms, such as monkeys. METHODS: Eighty-five rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) from the Oregon National Primate Research Center were drawn from a standard matriarchal colony and tested for behavioral response in four testing paradigms designed to elicit fearful-anxious reactions. Heritabilities were estimated using variance component-based quantitative genetic analyses with much of the genetic information arising from paternal half-sibs. RESULTS: Individual behaviors reflecting increased distress responses (e.g., vocalizations and teeth grinding) and behavioral inhibition (e.g., latency to leave mother, latency to inspect novel fruit) showed significant heritability, even though a small number of monkeys were assessed. Exploratory factor analyses identified seven clusters of behaviors across tests, some of which were found to be heritable. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that several specific fearful-anxious behaviors in infant rhesus monkeys are heritable within this colony. Accordingly, these phenotypes, which are believed to represent the genetic liability for anxiety and depression, are good candidates for further genetic investigation in this population.

Animals↗

The structure of temperamental fear and pleasure in infants: a psychometric perspective.

Despite the prominence of temperament constructs in the study of infant development, little evidence exists about the internal structure of temperament. We assessed temperament both via questionnaire and in repeated laboratory visits for 168 9-month-old twins and singletons. Mothers' and fathers' agreement on temperament questionnaire scales was low, except for scales tapping negative emotionality and activity level. The factor structure of mothers' and fathers' questionnaire scales also differed, with fathers tending to associate higher motoric activity with hedonically positive behaviors. We measured fearfulness during 2 visual cliff episodes and a stranger approach, and we measured joy/pleasure during a series of 4 games. For both fearfulness and pleasure we found moderate cross-situation generality, short-term stability, and convergence with specific temperament questionnaire scales. Parameters of response, such as latency, duration, and intensity, intercorrelated within--but not across--response types. Fearful distress and avoidance proved to be uncorrelated. The results suggest that the component behaviors of infant fearfulness and pleasure are structured in a fashion consistent with a temperamental interpretation.

Arousal↗