The increase in the number of infants and toddlers experiencing nonparental care creates an urgent need for the insights of theorists, clinicians, and researchers. These insights can help caretakers promote the mental health of infants and toddlers. Although caregivers usually provide sufficient support of babies' cognitive development, they may…

A study examined how maternal separation anxiety contributes to the mother's departure actions and how those behaviors affect the child during separation. Subjects were 40 mothers and their toddlers, age 15 to 24 months, who were observed before and during separation. After completing the Maternal Separation Anxiety Questionnaire, mothers were…

How infants and toddlers become skilled social actors has not been examined as often as the peer interactions of older children. This study examined 24, middle-class toddlers (ages 23 to 33 months) in 9 different settings during their free-play time at a university-cooperative nursery school. Researchers analyzed 150 social bids which were either…

This study examined patterns of social interactions and play activities in Japanese day care settings. Fifty children between 6 and 36 months of age in five day care centers in Tokyo were observed over several prescribed time intervals. Variables measured during the observations included: (1) type of social interaction; (2) type of activity…

Ideas for fine tuning the awareness and responsive interactions of teachers of infants and toddlers are offered. The ideas, which are supported by theory, research, and clinical experience, focus on the importance of: (1) tender, careful holding of babies; (2) prompt and accurate interpretation of the signals of distress; (3) development of keen…

The emergence of sex-role stereotypes in dependency behaviors exhibited toward day care teachers by male and female toddlers was explored. Communication and interaction attempts, or bids, that 25 male and 25 female toddlers from low income families in day care made toward their teachers were analyzed. Instrumental bids requesting help were…

Missouri's Parents as Teachers (PAT) program is a state-funded nontargeted early prevention service that is provided by all 543 school districts in the state. Professional educators involved in the program provide parents with the tools they need to effectively teach and nurture their young children. The PAT curriculum was designed to strengthen…

A study examined use of passive and antipassive constructions in the spontaneous utterances and picture comprehension responses of young speakers of Quiche Mayan, aged 1-5. This usage was compared with use of similar constructions in English-speaking children. Quiche-speakers' usage was found to be precocious in comparison with English-speakers'…

A study examined the role of phonological regression in the language learning patterns of two toddlers. The children's phonological development was measured by inventories of the words produced at the beginning and end of an eight-week period, and distinctions were made between regressions due to cognitive factors and those due to non-cognitive…

A study investigated whether young children use sentence accent to mark new information as systematically as they have been shown to handle contrastive stress within naturally-occurring discourse. Data were drawn from the spontaneous conversations of a boy-and-girl twin pair with adults. The twins' speech was coded in carefully-defined categories…

A study investigated children's difficulty in learning color words and attempted to determine whether the difficulty was perceptual, conceptual, or linguistic. The subjects were 24 two-year-olds, half with knowledge of color words and half without, and a similar control group. The experimental subjects were given conceptual and comprehension tasks…

A 9-month study of a 1-year-old child's acquisition of the pronunciation of "camera" is presented. The data show that while the child can articulate and perceive all the phonological segments of the adult form, she uses an idiosyncratic child-based form when she spontaneously draws from her lexicon to produce an utterance, systematically modifying…

This paper reviews the literature examining the lifelong challenges to family members represented by the birth of a child with severe disabilities. The paper addresses issues of family life, the systems that affect families, and current and future concerns related to having a child with severe disabilities. Studies addressing families of infants,…

This study examined the prelinguistic communicative behaviors of 48 young Israeli children with hearing impairments (ages 8 months to 49 months). Most subjects were severely hearing impaired. Ninety percent were born to hearing parents. A parent questionnaire utilizing a direct observation methodology in six situational contexts was selected,…

This study examined whether the differential maternal treatment of twins affected the twins' on-task behaviors in a teaching interaction. A total of 175 mothers and their same-sex 14-month-old twins were videotaped in their homes in triads. This was repeated for 170 of the families when the children were 24 months, and for 146 of the families when…