Infant Development

This paper has been published in a somewhat different form in Meg Harris Williams' "Aesthetic Conflict  and its Clinical Relevance." - Karnac, 2018.

It outlines the various "knife-edge" defenses the infant mind must struggle with in the face of the emotional impact of the mother's beauty, particularly when there is no absolute guarantee of this being reciprocated.
An attempt is made to disambiguate this vulnerability from those which call into play defenses against (Kleinian) unconscious envy.
Both serve to protect the internal good/beautiful mother from destruction, in the infant mind.
One aspect of Narcissism, not usually emphasized, is the lack of conscious awareness of one's rejection of love and beauty when offered by another.
Instead, the narcissist remains almost totally merely conscious of his or her own feelings of being rejected, especially aesthetically.

Background: Zinc deficiency is prevalent in children in developing countries. Supplemental zinc provides therapeutic benefits in diarrhea. Objective: We sought to measure the effect of supplemental zinc given with oral rehydration therapy during recovery from acute or persistent diarrhea. Design: We conducted pooled analyses including all available published and unpublished randomized controlled trials of the effects of supplementary oral zinc in children aged < 5 y with acute or persistent diarrhea. We used Cox survival regression analysis to evaluate the overall effect of zinc on continuation of diarrhea and possible differential effects in subgroups divided by sex, age, weight-for-height, and initial plasma zinc concentration. Dichotomous outcomes were analyzed by logistic regression. To assess the effects of excluding studies without original data from the pooled analyses, effect-size was estimated for all studies by using random-effects models. Results: Zinc-supplemented children had a 15% lower probability of continuing diarrhea on a given day (95% CI: 5%, 24%) in the acute-diarrhea trials and a 24% lower probability of continuing diarrhea (95% CI: 9%, 37%) and a 42% lower rate of treatment failure or death (95% CI: 10%, 63%) in the persistentdiarrhea trials. In none of the subgroup analyses were the 2 subgroups of each pair significantly different from each other; however, in persistent diarrhea there tended to be a greater effect in subjects aged < 12 mo, who were male, or who had wasting or lower baseline plasma zinc concentrations. Conclusion: Zinc supplementation reduces the duration and severity of acute and persistent diarrhea.

Objectives. The objectives of this study were 1) to assess whether there is an independent association between the level of prenatal cocaine exposure and infants' developmental test scores after control of potential confounding variables; and 2) if such an association exists, to determine which biological and social variables, individually and in interaction with each other, may modify it. Methods. In a prospective, longitudinal study of 203 urban term infants, 3 cocaine exposure groups were defined by maternal report and infant meconium assay: unexposed, heavier cocaine exposure (>75th percentile self-reported days of use or meconium benzoylecognine concentration), or lighter cocaine exposure (all others). Examiners, masked to exposure history, tested infants at 6, 12, and 24 months of age with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Results. The final mixed linear regression model included as fixed covariates level of prenatal exposure to cocaine, alcohol, and cigarettes; prenatal marijuana exposure; gestational age and birth weight z score for gestational age; and gender. Age at test, caregiver at time of each test (biological mother, kinship caregiver, unrelated foster caregiver), and any previous child-focused early intervention were included as time-dependent covariates. There were no significant adverse main effects of level of cocaine exposure on Mental Development Index (MDI), Psychomotor Development Index (PDI), or Infant Behavior Record. Child-focused early intervention interacted with level of cocaine exposure such that heavily exposed children who received such intervention showed higher adjusted mean MDI scores than all other groups. Although the sample was born at or near term, there was also a significant interaction of cocaine exposure and gestational age on MDI scores, with those in the heavier exposure group born at slightly lower gestational age having higher mean MDI scores compared with other children born at that gestational age. There was also a significant interaction on MDI between child's age and caregiver. At 6 months, the adjusted MDI of children living with a kinship caregiver was 15.5 points lower than that of children living with their biological mother, but this effect was diminished and was no longer significant at 24 months (difference in means: 4.3 points). The adjusted mean MDI of children in unrelated foster care at 6 months was 8.2 points lower than children of biological mothers, whereas it was 7.3 points higher at 24 months. Early intervention attenuated the age-related decline in PDI scores for all groups. Birth weight <10th percentile was associated with lower PDI scores for children with heavier cocaine exposure and with lower MDI scores for all groups. Conclusions. Heavier prenatal cocaine exposure is not an independent risk factor for depressed scores on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development up to 24 months of age when term infants are compared with lighter exposed or unexposed infants of the same demographic background. Cocaine-exposed infants with birth weight below the 10th percentile for gestational age and gender and those placed with kinship caregivers are at increased risk for less optimal developmental outcomes. Pediatric clinicians should refer cocaine-exposed children to the child-focused developmental interventions available for all children at developmental risk.

Objective: To examine the utility of the Bayley Infant Neurodevelopmental Screener (BINS) for the neurodevelopmental follow up of high-risk preterms. Methods: The study group consisted of 122 preterm infants of the gestational ages between 26 and 37 weeks. Medical factors such as; mean birth weight, gestational age, gender, birth place and type, number of multiple pregnancy, days of hospitalization and oxygen therapy, use of antenatal steroids, and occurence of sepsis for each patient were evaluated. The neurodevelopmental examination and BINS administration was made at each visit to the patients whose ages were adjusted for prematurity. Results: At the corrected age of 7-10 months patients at 26-29 GA had significantly lower total means of BINS scores when compared to those of the other two groups at 30-32 and 33-37 GA (P!0.01 and P!0.001). At the corrected age of 3-4 months, the total means of the BINS scores of the patients at 30-32 GA were lower than that of the patients at 33-37 GA (P!0.009). at 7-10 months the scores of the items defining the expressive and cognitive functions of the patients at 26-29 GA were lower than those of the patients at 30-32 GA (P!0.05) and 33-37 GA (P!0.05). At 16-20 months the mean scores of the items of expressive functions were significantly lower in patients of the 26-29 GA compared to those of the patients of 33-37 GA (P!0.03). Conclusion: As data accumulates, BINS will turn out to be a quick way of determining infants at risk of developmental delay in many aspects of neurologically high risk conditions. q

Mothers whose infants varied in early biological characteristics (born at term, n ϭ 120; born at very low birth weight [VLBW], n ϭ 144) were randomized to a target group (n ϭ 133) or developmental feedback comparison group (n ϭ 131) to determine whether learning responsive behaviors would facilitate infant development. The target condition included videotaped examples, problem-solving activities, and mothers' critique of their own behaviors through video procedures across 10 home visits. All target versus comparison mothers showed greater increases across multiple responsiveness behaviors observed in 4 assessments conducted across 6-13 months of age; changes in emotionally supportive behaviors were strongest for target mothers of infants born at VLBW. Increased maternal responsiveness facilitated greater growth in target infants' social, emotional, communication, and cognitive competence, supporting a causal role for responsiveness on infant development. Although benefits were generally comparable across risk groups, aspects of social and emotional skills showed greater change for those born at VLBW. Evidence for responsiveness as a multidimensional construct was provided as well as the importance of different aspects of responsiveness mediating the effect of the intervention on different infant skill domains.

OBJECTIVE. Methamphetamine use among pregnant women is an increasing problem in the United States. Effects of methamphetamine use during pregnancy on fetal growth have not been reported in large, prospective studies. We examined the neonatal growth effects of prenatal methamphetamine exposure in the multicenter, longitudinal Infant Development, Environment and Lifestyle study.

Objective: To examine the validity of the Child Development Inventory (CDI) compared with other commonly used measures of developmental outcomes in high-risk infants. Study design: Primary caregivers of 63 toddlers and preschoolers enrolled at a routine neonatal high-risk follow-up clinic completed a CDI describing their children. Only those with successfully completed CDIs were included in the analysis (n = 43). The CDI General Development Developmental Quotient was compared with the Clinical Adaptive Test/Clinical Linguistic and Auditory Milestone Scale (CAT/CLAMS) and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, 2nd Edition (BSID-II). Results: Significant correlations were found between the CDI, the CAT/CLAMS (r = .87, P < .001), and the BSID-II (r = .86, P < .001). There were no significant correlations between the CDI and parent education and income. Findings revealed high sensitivity (80% to 100%) and specificity (94% to 96%) for the CDI. The CDI appears to be a useful and cost-effective screening measure for determining developmental outcomes among high-risk infants.

Smiling and laughing appear very early during the first year of life, but little is known about how infants come to appraise a stimulus as humorous. This short-term longitudinal study explored infant humor perception from 5 to 7 months of age as a function of parental affect during an absurd event. Using a within-participants design, parents alternated smiling/laughing with emotional neutrality while acting absurdly toward their infants. Group comparisons showed that infants (N = 37) at all ages smiled at the event regardless of parental affect but did so significantly longer at 5 and 6 months, and more often and sooner at 7 months, when parents provided humor cues. Similarly, sequential analyses revealed that after gazing at the event, 7-month-olds were more likely to smile at it only when parents provided humor cues and were comparatively more likely to look away when parents were neutral. Thus, starting at 5 months of age, parental affect influenced infants' affect toward an absurd event, an effect that was magnified at 7 months. These results are discussed in the context of emotional contagion, regulation, and the emergence of social referencing.

Background: Deficiencies of iron and zinc are associated with delayed development, growth faltering, and increased infectiousdisease morbidity during infancy and childhood. Combined iron and zinc supplementation may therefore be a logical preventive strategy. Objective: The objective of the study was to compare the effects of combined iron and zinc supplementation in infancy with the effects of iron and zinc as single micronutrients on growth, psychomotor development, and incidence of infectious disease. Design: Indonesian infants (n ҃ 680) were randomly assigned to daily supplementation with 10 mg Fe (Fe group), 10 mg Zn (Zn group), 10 mg Fe and 10 mg Zn (FeѿZn group), or placebo from 6 to 12 mo of age. Anthropometric indexes, developmental indexes (Bayley Scales of Infant Development; BSID), and morbidity were recorded. Results: At 12 mo, two-factor analysis of variance showed a significant interaction between iron and zinc for weight-for-age z score, knee-heel length, and BSID psychomotor development. Weight-forage z score was higher in the Zn group than in the placebo and FeѿZn groups, knee-heel length was higher in the Zn and Fe groups than in the placebo group, and the BSID psychomotor development index was higher in the Fe group than in the placebo group. No significant effect on morbidity was found. Conclusions: Single supplementation with zinc significantly improved growth, and single supplementation with iron significantly improved growth and psychomotor development, but combined supplementation with iron and zinc had no significant effect on growth or development. Combined, simultaneous supplementation with iron and zinc to infants cannot be routinely recommended at the iron-to-zinc ratio used in this study.

Objective. On average, infants with Down syndrome (DS) learn to walk about 1 year later than nondisabled (ND) infants. The purpose of this study was to determine if practice stepping on a motorized treadmill could help reduce the delay in walking onset normally experienced by these infants. Methods. Thirty families of infants with DS were randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. All infants were karyotyped trisomy 21 and began participation in the study when they could sit alone for 30 seconds (Bayley Scales of Infant Development, Second Edition 1993, item 34). Infants received traditional physical therapy at least every other week. In addition, intervention infants received practice stepping on a small, motorized treadmill, 5 days per week, for 8 minutes a day, in their own homes. Parents were trained to support their infants on these specially engineered miniature treadmills. Every 2 weeks research staff went into the homes and tested infants' overall motor progress by administering the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, Second Edition, 1 monitored growth status via a battery of 11 anthropometric measures, and checked parents' compliance with physical therapy and treadmill intervention. The primary measures of the intervention's effectiveness were comparisons between the groups on the length of time elapsed between sitting for 30 seconds (entry into the study) and 1) raising self to stand; 2) walking with help; and 3) walking independently. Results. The experimental group learned to walk with help and to walk independently significantly faster (73.8 days and 101 days, respectively) than the control group, both of which also produced large effect size statistics for the group differences. The groups were not statistically different for rate of learning to raise self to stand but there was a moderate effect size statistic suggesting that the groups were meaningfully different in favor of the experimental group. Conclusions. These results provide evidence that, with training and support, parents can use these treadmills in their homes to help their infants with DS learn to walk earlier than they normally would. Current research is aimed at 1) improving the protocol to maximize outcome; 2) determining the impact of treadmill practice on walking gait patterns; 3) testing the application to other populations with a history of delays in walking; and 4) determining the long-term benefits that may accrue from this form of activity.

Research on child development and maternal well-being in immigrant families presents contradictory findings, documenting both cultural protective factors termed “the immigrant paradox” and developmental risks (Fuller & Garcia Coll, 2010; Suarez-Orozco, Rhodes, & Milburn, 2009). Further, little is known about immigration advantage/disadvantage in early childhood, or risk and protective factors for specific groups with dissimilar immigration experiences. This study integrated transnational socialcultural/ecological and biopsychosocial theories to explore impacts of risk and protective factors on two groups of migrant and non-migrant Brazilian mothers and infants from Minas Gerais, permitting assessment of migration impacts while controlling for regional contextual/subcultural factors. Eighty-two mothers and their 12-20-montholds from Minas Gerais were assessed in their homes in Massachusetts (N=41) and Minas Gerais (N=41). Maternal questionnaires measured transnational maternal, family and parenting practices to create indices of protective and risk factors. Outcome variables were measured using the BSID-III and BITSEA (child cognitive and social/emotional), and the K-10 (maternal well-being). The findings show that Brazilian immigrant mothers are highly transnational. They tended to absorb positive dominant culture parenting values while still maintaining native protective practices, drawing support from the immigrant community, and from family and friends in Brazil. Non-migrant mothers were more likely to report higher poverty levels, parenting stress and socio-emotional problems in their infants. Child development (cognitive, language, and motor) did not differ significantly between the two groups. Familismo and church attendance buffered effects of risks on maternal well-being. A protective index did not buffer impacts of cumulative risk on infant development, socio-emotional problems, and maternal psychological symptoms in immigrants.

Background This study assessed the concurrent validity of the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) compared with Bayley Scales of Infant Development II (BSID II) amongst children aged 24 months. Methods Data were collected from 53 infants and mothers who participated in the New York State Angler Cohort Child Development Study. Parents completed the 24-month ASQ to assess communication, personal-social, problem-solving ability, and fine and gross motor control. The BSID II was administered by a clinical psychologist at the 24-month home visit for cognitive and psychomotor assessment. The ASQ was scored using age-specific norms of <2 SDs below any domain mean to define failure. A BSID II score of <85 indicated mild or severe delay, while a score of <70 suggested a severe delay.

The purpose of this study was to investigate individual differences in sustained attention and task performance with toddlers. Participants were 61 17 -24-month old toddlers. Indices of sustained attention (duration of attention and frequency of off-task glances) were assessed during two 4 min problem solving tasks, and then related to problem solving and the mental scale of the Bayley scales of infant development-II (BSID-II). As expected, toddlers who attended to tasks for longer periods of time were more successful at problem solving, and had higher scores on the BSID-II than toddlers who attended for shorter periods of time. In addition, older toddlers had longer attention spans, more frequent off-task glances, and were more successful at problem solving than younger toddlers. Interestingly, toddlers with more frequent off-task glances had longer attention spans, were more successful at problem solving, and had higher BSID-II scores than peers with fewer off-task glances. These findings suggest that although behavioural indices can be used to identify sustained attention, the relationship between behaviours thought to capture distractibility and attention is more complex than had been previously assumed. Results are discussed in the context of current theories of infant attention and cognitive performance. The ability to sustain attention has been shown to be associated with cognitive task performance with adults and school-aged children investigate the relationship between individual differences in sustained attention and performance on cognitive tasks in children between the ages of 17 and 24 months. More specifically, we investigate whether the ability to sustain attention while engaged in two problem solving tasks predicts performance on the same two tasks, and whether it is related to performance on independent measures of cognitive skills.

The assumption that proprioceptive inputs from the lower legs are used to trigger balance and gait movements is questioned in this review (an outgrowth of discussions initiated during the Neural Control of Movement Satellite meeting held in Cozumel, Mexico, April 1997). Recent findings presented here suggest that trunk or hip inputs may be more important in triggering human balance corrections and that proprioceptive input from the lower legs mainly helps with the final shaping and intermuscular coordination of postural and gait movements. Three major questions were considered. First, what role, if any, do lower-leg proprioceptive inputs play in the triggering of normal balance corrections? If this role is negligible, which alternative proprioceptive inputs then trigger balance corrections? Second, what is the effect of proprioceptive loss on the triggering of postural and gait movements? Third, how does proprioceptive loss affect the output of central pattern generators in providing the final shaping of postural movements? The authors conclude that postural and gait movements are centrally organized at two levels. The first level involves the generation of the basic directionally-specific response pattern based primarily on hip or trunk proprioceptive input and secondarily on vestibular inputs. This pattern specifies the spatial characteristics of muscle activation, that is which muscles are primarily activated, as well as intermuscular timing, or the sequence in which muscles are activated. The second level is involved in the shaping of centrally set activation patterns on the basis of multi-sensorial afferent input (including proprioceptive input from all body segments and vestibular sensors) in order that movements can adapt to different task conditions.

No previous longitudinal study has examined the impact of comorbid maternal personality disorder (PD) and depression on child development. We set out to examine whether maternal PD and depression assessed at 2 months post partum would be independently associated with adverse developmental outcomes at 18 months of age. Method: Women were recruited into the study shortly after delivery and screened for depression and PD. Those meeting criteria for depression, PD, or both conditions, were selected for assessment at 2 months post partum, together with a comparison group with neither condition (total sample, N ϭ 200). Assessments of cognitive, social and emotional development were conducted with their children at 18 months of age. Results: Maternal postpartum depression and PD were both associated with higher levels of dysregulated infant behavior. There was a significant interaction between depression and PD in the model of dysregulated behavior and the detrimental effects of maternal depression and PD were evident only among mothers with both conditions. Maternal depression was independently associated with impaired infant cognitive scores and higher levels of internalizing behavior. Conclusions: Future studies of the effects of maternal depression should also take into account the effects of comorbid maternal PD. Health professionals need to be aware of the possible co-occurrence of PD among mothers presenting with postnatal depression and that mothers with these co-occurring disorders are likely to require greater support.

This is a Portuguese translation of "The Afterlife is where We Come from: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa."  This edition was translated by Mara Sobreira and published by the University of São Paulo Press (Editora Unifesp/Editora da Universidade Federal de São Paulo) in Brazil in 2013.

A World of Babies provides a wide variety of answers to these and countless other child-rearing questions, precisely because diverse communities around the world hold such different beliefs about parenting and engage in remarkably different child-rearing practices. While celebrating that diversity, the book also explores the challenges that poverty, globalization, and violence pose for parents.
Fully updated for the twenty-first century, this edition features a new introduction and eight new or revised chapters that directly address contemporary parenting challenges, from China and Peru to Israel and the West Bank.
Written as imagined advice manuals to parents, the creative format of the book brings alive a rich body of knowledge that highlights many models of baby-rearing–each shaped by deeply held values and widely varying contexts
Parenthood may never again seem a matter of “common sense.”

Human language appears to be unique among natural communication systems, and such uniqueness impinges on both nature and nurture. Human babies are endowed with cognitive abilities that predispose them to learn language, and this process cannot operate in an impoverished environment. To be effectively complete the acquisition of human language in human children requires highly socialised forms of learning, scaffolded over years of prolonged and intense caretaker-child interactions. How genes and environment operate in shaping language is unknown. These two components have traditionally been considered as independent, and often pitted against each other in terms of the nature versus nurture debate. This perspective article considers how innate abilities and experience might instead work together. In particular, it envisages potential scenarios for research, in which early caregiver verbal and non-verbal attachment practices may mediate or moderate the expression of human genetic systems for language.

Objectives: Determining nutritional development in wild primates is difficult through observations because confirming dietary intake is challenging. Physiological measures are needed to determine the relative contributions of maternal milk and other foods at different ages, and time of weaning. We used fecal stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes (d 13 C, d 15 N) and fecal nitrogen concentrations (%N) from wild chimpanzees at Ngogo, Uganda, to derive physiological dietary indicators during the transition from total reliance on maternal milk to adult foods after weaning. Materials and Methods: We analyzed 560 fecal samples collected non-invasively from 48 infants, their mothers, and 6 juvenile siblings. Most infant and juvenile samples (90%) were matched to samples collected from mothers on the same day. Isotopic assessments were compared with observations of nursing and feeding.

Infants as young as 3 months are able to detect depression in their mothers. Depressed mothers are sufficiently different from nondepressed mothers in affect and interaction that the social, emotional, and cognitive functioning of their infants are compromised. This article reviews current findings on the effects of maternal depression and psychiatric illness on infants.

Daniel N. Stern’s research on the first years of life offers the view of an active newborn, developing in a continuous dialogue with the Other. The mother places the infant feelings at the center of her attention. The infant gets in tune with the mother, and learns that she welcomes and understands his inner states. Such attunement is a primary holistic experience, taking place because of the infant innate ability to perceive the “interpersonal happenings” as a unitary Gestalt, emerging “from the theoretically separate experiences of movement, force, time, space and intention”. Large convergence exists between Daniel Stern’s developmental psychology and Gestalt psychology: both view the infant development occurring within an inter-subjective matrix, not as a process with phases or stages, but rather as a progressive organization of structures.

Begleitete Elternschaft ist eine Unterstützungsmaßnahme für Eltern mit geistiger Behinderung und ihre Kinder. Die übergeordnete Zielstellung besteht daran, den Familien eine dauerhafte und gemeinsame Lebensperspektive unter Sicherung des Kindeswohls zu ermöglichen.
Die vorliegende Evaluation untersucht die aktuelle Umsetzung des Konzeptes in der Praxis und entwickelt Vorschläge für die weitere Ausgestaltung der Hilfestruktur. Zentrale Fragestellungen sind u.a.:
Welche Merkmale haben Familien, die durch Begleitete Elternschaft unterstützt werden, und wie leben die Familien?
Wie erfüllen die Mütter innerhalb des Hilfekontextes ihre elterlichen Aufgaben?
Wie entwickeln sich die Kinder der durch Begleitete Elternschaft unterstützten Familien?

SEPIA-D ist eine Teilstudie des SNF-Projektes 100019_149570 / 1. Sie wird finanziert vom Schweizerischen Nationalfonds sowie dem Forschungspool der Universität Freiburg (Schweiz). Projektleitung: Priv.-Doz. Dr. Dagmar Orthmann Bless.

The purpose of this study was to describe the performance of children whose mothers abused alcohol and drugs heavily during pregnancy, using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development Second Edition (BSID-II) at three years, and to examine the effects of study group, prenatal binge alcohol exposure, and prematurity on developmental outcome. Methods: Children were born to mothers recruited from two large hospitals or through community referral. Hospital recruits were randomly assigned to either a three-year paraprofessional home visitation intervention program (n ϭ 30) or a control group (n ϭ 31). Community recruits were enrolled in the intervention program (n ϭ 35). Results: Among all children the mean BSID-II Mental Developmental Index (MDI) was 84.4 (SD ϭ 14.4) and mean Psychomotor Developmental Index (PDI) was 84.1 (SD ϭ 16.9). Box plots of the MDI and PDI scores by study group, maternal prenatal binge alcohol status, and a binary indicator of prematurity suggested an effect of maternal binge drinking on MDI and PDI scores: children of mothers with a history of binge alcohol consumption have, on average, slightly lower scores. We saw no evidence of a systematic effect of the maternal intervention. Conclusions: Developmental performance of preschool children exposed to alcohol and drugs prenatally was, on average, substantially lower than expected for age regardless of study group. Although this home visitation intervention has been shown to be effective in helping mothers address a wide spectrum of needs, it is unlikely sufficient to overcome complex developmental risks of children exposed to alcohol and drugs prenatally. The effect of more comprehensive, multidimensional services specifically designed for the children should be investigated within this context.

Drawing from Bhakti Psychology of Divine Mother Worship and existentialism, I consider consciousness as Divine Mother, as infinitely creative light of sentience congruent with eternal impermanence. I examine infantile " separation anxiety " as, in part, an initiatory spiritual experience into the infinity of consciousness and its congruence with eternal time deified as Mother Kali, the awesome/terrifying Creatrix of endless duration itself. Further, I show how the psychoanalytic concept of " self-soothing " can be understood as another aspect of Divine Mother, Her compassionate love for all who struggle for betterment or long for succor. Indeed, She can be understood as the primary motivator of all human compassion when the hormonal chemistries of compassion are viewed as the materialization of Her originary Love. Finally, I suggest that the psychotherapist's focus on empathic listening be expanded to include admiration, awe and reverence for his patient's struggles. Likewise, a parent's comforting of her baby should include reverential pride and admiration (not just reassuring soothing) for her baby's daunting encounter with the infinity of consciousness, under-described as mere " separation anxiety " in psychoanalysis. In this way, spiritual aspects of Indian Psychology might be preserved as it draws from materialistic Western Psychology to create its own treatment modalities.

Recent research on infant development is reviewed to consider its implications for psychodynamic theory and practice. To address the question of the importance of early experiences for development, research on continuities and discontinuities in development, temperament, motivational systems in infancy, affect development and regulation, development of the sense of self, and infant-caregiver attachment are reviewed. Two major implications emerge, both emphasizing the need for more complexities in our conceptualizations. First, research on infant development underscores the importance of context in development and cautions about the limits of reductionistic thinking and theories. Second a major paradigmatic shift away from the fixation-regression model of psychopathology and development is indicated. A new model that better fits available data is proposed instead. In this continuous construction model, there is no need for regression, and ontogenetic origins of psychopathology are no longer necessarily tied to specific critical or sensitive periods in development. Implications for psychodynamic treatment are also described.

Objective: To examine the reliability and validity of the Harris Infant Neuromotor Test (HINT), a screening tool that can be administered and scored in <30 minutes, with the goal of identifying neuromotor differences in infants aged 3 to 12 months.

An imagined childcare guide for parenting, Beng-style, as if it were written by a (fictionalized) Beng diviner and grandmother, but based on ethnographic research written up in more scholarly style elsewhere (especially, The Afterlife Is Where We Come from: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa, by Alma Gottlieb; U. of Chicago Press, 2004).

Il presente lavoro di ricerca si iscrive in un progetto psico-pedagogico e architettonico di ridefinizione di un ex edificio (ONMI) di proprietà comunale, convertito in spazio per l’infanzia. Questo lavoro ha visto una collaborazione strutturata e collaborativa tra gli addetti ai lavori, i pedagogisti (educatori, operatori e coordinatori) e i tecnici (architetti). Dalla circolarità tra prassi e teoria, ne deriva un duplice lavoro: da una parte una review della letteratura scientifica in campo pedagogico sull’organizzazione e la gestione degli spazi per i bambini delle fasce di età più piccole, riletti in chiave problematica e critica seguendo le indicazioni e le suggestioni educative di Maria Montessori; dall’altra parte un lavoro di ricerca a carattere esplorativo avente come oggetto le rappresentazioni individuali e collettive inerenti la progettazione, la pianificazione e la realizzazione di spazi per l’infanzia ad opera di equipe multidisciplinari.

Mothers of hospitalised preterm infants were randomised into an intervention or control condition. Intervention mothers received a modified Mother-Infant Transaction Program over seven sessions prior to infant discharge and two sessions over the next 3 months. Infant temperament, mother-infant interaction and parenting stress were assessed at 3 and 6 months and infant development was measured by parental report at 24 months. Intervention compared with control dyads showed enhanced mother-infant interactions, infants were temperamentally more "approaching" and "easier", had fewer regulatory problems (colic, sleep, excessive crying), and had more developed communication skills, while mothers were less stressed by their infant at 3 months. These early gains in the development of preterm infants and in the relationship with and adjustment of their mothers, may explain the process by which intervention infants in the original study showed increasing cognitive advantages to 9 years of age [Rauh, V.

Postpartum depression (PPD) has been an issue that, though it has been recognized and mildly studied for years, has been hidden in plain sight without much attention until the recent decade.  There appears to be a negative stigma related to PPD that has aided in its secrecy over the years, but with more national visibility and acceptance towards depression and depressive symptoms, this stigma is easing slightly allowing for a more accurate reflection of PPD in America.

Creativity in adults is highly valued in our society. Personal creativity contributes to inventiveness, innovation, social and cultural change as well as political development and economic progression. The creator is an innovator, a problem solver, an entrepreneur, an artist. Creative people have rapid and effective responses that help them to achieve their life goals and allow them to enjoy the journey. Creativity is both a skill set and a unique and individual character structure that is developed throughout childhood and fine-tuned in adolescence and adulthood. Education has a key role to play in its development. Positive creativity inspiring experiences at every stage of the educational journey are needed. This is especially true in early childhood. Educators who rise to the creativity challenge will be well rewarded in rich teaching experiences and the joy of seeing children reach their creative potential in supportive and integrated learning communities.

Creativity in adults is highly valued in our society. Personal creativity contributes to inventiveness, innovation, social and cultural change as well as political development and economic progression. The creator is an innovator, a problem solver, an entrepreneur, an artist. Creative people have rapid and effective responses that help them to achieve their life goals and allow them to enjoy the journey. Creativity is both a skill set and a unique and individual character structure that is developed throughout childhood and fine-tuned in adolescence and adulthood. Education has a key role to play in its development. Positive creativity inspiring experiences at every stage of the educational journey are needed. This is especially true in early childhood. Educators who rise to the creativity challenge will be well rewarded in rich teaching experiences and the joy of seeing children reach their creative potential in supportive and integrated learning communities.

[Daniel Stern and the development of intersubjectivity]

Summary:

This article (in German language) presents some of the main results of Daniel N. Stern's infant and toddler research. His findings and conclusions show a high agreement with Gestalt theoretical positions. From the observation of the interactions of infants with their mothers Stern has demonstrated above all the relationship character of the event. He also supplemented and modified a number of findings and conclusions that had previously been presented by attachment research. For example, attachment behaviour cannot really be understood without understanding the motivation for this behaviour - the need for belonging. Stern works in a differentiated way on the modalities and behaviors that can be used prelingually or without the use of language to build, hold, and regulate relationships. This alone can provide a variety of stimuli for relationships in psychotherapy, whether with children or with adults. The patient is not the individual, but the relationship that this person has with others.

Zusammenfassung:

Der Beitrag stellt einige Hauptergebnisse der Säuglings- und Kleinkindforschungen von Daniel N. Stern vor. Seine Befunde und Schlussfolgerungen weisen eine hohe Übereinstimmung mit gestalttheoretischen Auffassungen auf. Stern hat aus der Beobachtung der Interaktionen von Säuglingen mit ihren Müttern vor allem den Beziehungscharakter des Geschehens herausgearbeitet. Er hat damit auch eine Reihe von Befunden und Schlussfolgerungen ergänzt und modifiziert, die bis dahin von der Bindungsforschung vorgelegt worden waren. So kann etwa das Bindungsverhalten nicht wirklich verstanden werden, ohne die Motivation für dieses Verhalten zu verstehen – das Bedürfnis nach Zugehörigkeit. Stern arbeitet in differenzierter Weise die verschiedenen Modalitäten und Verhaltensweisen heraus, die vorsprachlich bzw. ohne Einsatz von Sprache dem Aufbau, dem Halten und der Regulierung von Beziehungen dienen können. Schon daraus können vielfältige Anregungen auch für das Beziehungsgeschehen in der  Psychotherapie gewonnen werden, ob nun mit Kindern oder mit Erwachsenen. Der Patient ist nicht das Individuum, sondern die Beziehung, in denen diese Person mit anderen steht.