Maternal and infant behaviors of 30 American and 52 Japanese mother/infant dyads from middle-class homes were compared. The major differences in caretaker behavior were (1) the Japanese mothers spent more time with or in the presence of their babies than did the American mothers, and (2) the American mothers were more active in positioning the…

A cross-national comparison of infant behavior in the Strange Situation was designed to determine whether preseparation episodes made any difference in attachment classifications and whether infant behavior before separation from mother was the same in different countries. Infants in different countries made similar primary appraisals of the…

This study focused on French and U.S. mother-infant dyads interacting in their homes. Infants' visual attention, tactual exploration, vocalization and mothers' mediated and unmediated stimulation and speech to infants were observed. Mothers and infants in the two cultures showed some similarities and some different emphases in their activities,…

In this study of prominent characteristics of parenting in the United States, France, and Japan, 72 mother-infant dyads were examined. The study focused on three prominent interactive domains of visual and vocal exchange between mother and baby (nurturing, social exchange, and didactic stimulation), examining their frequency of occurrence and…

This report contains a series of articles from Japan, New Zealand, and the U.S. dealing with child development. The articles concern: (1) a social dynamic theory of early human development and a program of research based on this theory; (2) the need for intervention and the structure of intervention for children with disabilities on the island of…

This paper reports the results of a study on the quality of attachment in two groups of interracially adopted infants in the Netherlands, and compares these results with results from a similar study of American interracial adoption. The two groups in the Netherlands consisted of 30 adoptive Asian children placed in White families, and 20 Asian and…

Mother-infant interaction creates a context for socioemotional, behavioral, and cognitive development. This study used the Nursing Child Assessment Feeding Scale (NCAFS) and the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale (NCATS) to examine mother-infant interaction in Japanese dyads. Subjects were residing in Hikkaido, Japan, and assessments were…

This annual report presents several articles related to the work of the Clinical Center for Child Development at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. The articles are: (1) "Intrinsic Musicality: Rhythm and Prosody in Infant-Directed Voices" (Niki Powers); (2) "Movable Cognitive Studies with a Portable, Telemetric Near-Infrared…

Discusses the values transmitted to infants and toddlers by a majority of Americans and by many early childhood education leaders. Points out how mainstream infant/toddler programs encourage the characteristics of individualism, independence, choice and exploration, initiative, equality, and expressiveness. Examines parents' role in infant/toddler…

Noting that the role of culture in the development of child attachment provides a provocative arena for debate among a wide array of scholars, this book details two studies of cultural differences in the meanings given to attachment behavior by middle- and working-class Anglo and Puerto Rican mothers. The book reviews the cultural adaptationism…

This annual report presents several articles related to the work of the Clinical Center for Child Development at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. The articles are: (1) "Maternal Speech and Behavior during Mother-Infant Play: Comparison between the United States and Japan" (Sueko Toda, Marc H. Bornstein, and Hiroshi Azuma); (2)…