This study reports on crawling variability and differences in variability between infants with typical development (TD) and those with developmental delays. This longitudinal study included 0-year-old infants with no apparent dysfunction. The crawling movement in the video was coded objectively with reference to previous research. The infants were…

Difficulties in social communication are not necessarily observed only in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and there are many subclinical cases in the general populations. Although advanced parental age at childbirth has often been considered a possible risk factor of ASD, it might contribute to poor social functioning in…

Japan once was a country suffering from undernourishment due to the shortage of food supply during and right after World War. Within a half century, however, Japan became one of the most developed industrial counties and, during the process of the economic development, adopted Western life style and eating habit: the Japanese have, with sufficient…

Background: For early detection of autism, it is difficult to maintain an efficient level of sensitivity and specificity based on observational data from a single screening. The Extraction and Refinement (E&R) Strategy utilizes a public children's health surveillance program to produce maximum efficacy in early detection of autism. In the…

This paper presents a cultural and historical analysis of the continuously increasing number of children and childhoods at risk, using a population perspective framework. Two major claims are presented. First the conditions of children and childhoods in the West, compared to the patterns of child-care in India, Japan and many other non-Western…

This book contains 17 papers devoted to the following four aspects of the transition to adulthood: effects of alterations in the structure of opportunity; effects of prior experiences in the family; effects of prior experience in the workplace; and career development and marriage formation during a period of rising inequality. The following papers…

This document contains 15 papers from a conference on preparing youth for the 21st century that was organized by the U.S. Department of Education and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The following papers are included: "Giving Young People a Good Start: The Experience of OECD Countries" (Norman Bowers,…