Purpose: A recent approach to identifying early markers of risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been to study infants who have an older sibling with ASD. These infants are at heightened risk (HR) for ASD and for other developmental difficulties, and even those who do not receive an eventual ASD diagnosis manifest a high degree of…

The infant-parent class offers the school's first opportunity for a prepared environment and utilizes observation as an important tool for parents. Purposeful work is given to both parents and their young children. Montessori principles, such as teaching sensitive periods for language and movement, convey one activity at a time for bringing…

Alyssa Conklin-Moore discusses normalization in the child under three from several perspectives. She takes an extensive look at the child, including orienting parents to the Montessori environment, the child's entrance into the environment, addressing the sensitive periods, and fostering independence, contribution, and community. She reminds the…

In this study, free play with toys having unambiguous functions was examined to test the hypothesis that a basic cognitive metamorphosis is associated with the new competences displayed in children at about 12 months. Functional play was observed in 64 children at 9 1/2, 11 1/2, 13 1/2, and 15 1/2 months of age. Six sets of toys with 36…

In 1974, the Facilitating Educational Achievement through Telecommunications (FEATT) project began a study to test the efficacy of specially produced video cassettes to teach parents of severely handicapped children how to instruct their children in basic psychomotor skills. Fifty families in Northern Indiana agreed to field test the tapes.…

This paper reports an exploratory investigation of motor patterns characteristic of maternal gameplaying behavior conducted with forty-eight 4-, 6- and 8-month-old infants and their mothers. Videotapes of 6-minute laboratory mother-infant play sessions were segmented into maternal games which were categorized according to the type and complexity…

The author considers the importance of evaluating preschoolers' perceptual motor development, the usefulness of various evaluation techniques, and the specific psychomotor abilities that require evaluation. He quotes researchers to underline the difficulty of choosing appropriate evaluative techniques and to stress the importance of taking…

This paper attempts to refute the assumption that early motor development is determined genetically and is not influenced by environmental factors. The paper re-examines three studies which are consistently cited as providing evidence for a maturational theory of motor development: the "early training study" by Gesell and Thompson, the "swaddling…

The original Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) have been among the most popular measures of performance and aptitude of infants. In this study, the construct validity of scores on the Behavior Rating Scale of the revised Bayley Scales, the BSID-II, was investigated using national standardization and clinical samples of children ranging in…

The original "Bayley Scales of Infant Development" (BSID) (Bayley 1969) have been among the most popular measures of performance and aptitude of infants. In the present study the reliability and construct validity of mental and motor scores on the revised Bayley Scales of Infant Development-II (BSID-II) were investigated. A national…