Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1987.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1981. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-115).

An infant stimulation program developed for mothers from low income areas with children under the age of three years is described. The program was developed for use in a public health setting and involved close collaboration with personnel from a number of community service agencies. The program, which had a duration of eight weeks, involved a combination of group meetings and home visits. Outcome was assessed in terms of developmental quotients and estimates of the quality of the home environment. Three additional programs consisted of a waiting list control and programs in which each of the two intervention components, home visits and group meetings, were offered separately. Assessments were carried out prior to the programs, immediately following them and four months later. Pre-assessments established the equivalence of the four groups on both the dependent measures and socioeconomic indices, although the groups were found to differ on the measure of maternal intelligence obtained. Following intervention, the scores obtained on both dependent measures for the home visits plus group meetings program were found to be significantly greater than those obtained by the waiting list control clients. The effect of the home visits only program was indeterminate as the scores did not differ significantly from either the control group or the home visits plus group meetings program. Clients in the group meetings only program did not differ significantly from control group clients on either measure. Similar results were obtained at follow up assessments, with no evidence of any decline in scores following the end of intervention. Whereas the correlations observed between maternal intelligence and children's developmental quotients remained much the same over the three assessment periods, the correlations between the home environments and the children's developmental quotients increased, both concurrently and predictively, following intervention. These findings were interpreted as providing support for the hypothesis that the changes in the home environments resulting from the programs were indeed important ones in terms of the children's development. There was some evidence to suggest that the socioeconomic indices of age, education and income of mother were positively related to outcome, while, in addition, maternal intelligence was related to the maintenance of treatment effect at follow up. The correlation of socioeconomic status with outcome was consistent with the results of other infant stimulation programs but was not considered to reflect on the effectiveness of the program as all of the clients in the study were of low socioeconomic status. The implications of these results are discussed both in terms of the further development and implementation of the program described and in the context of research in the area of infant stimulation. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

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The present study investigated food acceptance/ingestional neophobia as a function of distal and proximal sources of stimulus novelty in human infants of two ages and evaluated the utility of the two-stage model of ingestion (e.g., Garcia, Hankins, & Rusiniak, 1974) in understanding the role of novel cues in food acceptance. Thirty-two infants (6- to 12-months-of-age) and 32 toddlers (13- to 24-months-of-age) received a familiar or a novel food from a familiar or a novel presenter during lunchtime at a day care center. The measures of performance were latency to the first and second bites, percentage frequencies of gustofacial expressions, behavioral indices of food rejection, such as spitting out the food, pushing the food away and upper body flexion, and percentage intake. Reliably longer latencies occurred to the novel than to the familiar presenter on first and second bites for both age groups. No reliable effects were found to the appearance of the novel food on latencies to the first bite or to the taste cues of the novel food on latencies to the second bite for either age group. Combinations of novel presenter and novel food cues did not produce reliably longer latencies to the second bite than did mixed combinations of novel/familiar cues. However, infants, but not toddlers, showed reliably longer latencies to the novel than to the familiar presenter in the novel food condition prior to the second bite. No reliable age differences were observed in negative gustofacial responses to novel foods. Latencies to the first and second bites were reliably correlated with percentage intake and behavioral indices of aversiveness such as upper body flexion and pushing the food away. These data suggested that demonstration of neophobia may be an indication of aversiveness of novelty. Finding that ingestional neophobia occurred to novel presenter cues supported the view of the two-stage model that distal cues influence approach behavior and the start of ingestion. However, the model was net supported by data for the second bite. Failure to find reliable effects to food cues in latencies to the second bite did net support the view that proximal food cues influence the continuation of ingestion. The prediction for greater neophobia to combinations of novel cues was not supported. Reliable differences in latencies to the second bite for infants, but not for toddlers, who received a novel food from a novel presenter suggest developmental differences in ingestional neophobia. / Ph. D.

This experiment was designed to elucidate the function of adult facial and vocal behavior for infant perception and expression of affect. Nine infants were studied longitudinally at 2 months and at 3 1/2 months using a dynamic visual display that consisted of a videotape of a woman moving her face while expressing happiness or sadness. A second group of 10 infants were studied similarly ina version of this procedure that used a static videotaped display of the woman's face in which she showed fixed expressions of either emotion. Both types of visual displays were accompanied by a soundtrack playing either affectively matched or unmatched infant-directed (ID) speech. Infant visual fixations of the display area were determined during the experimental session by a trained observer who was kept unaware of the stimuli being presented. The sum of these fixations for infants in the Static condition was greater than that of infants in the Dynamic condition. A similar analysis of the average length of infants’ visual fixations revealed no significant results. Analyses of infant affect and "interactiveness" were also conducted by having trained raters score videotapes of each session using one of 4 rating scales. According to 2 of these measures, infant facial affect was more positive during displays that contained happy elements than during matched sad displays, and 3 1/2-month olds were more frequently rated as More Happy during matched happy displays. Thus, infants showed different affective responses to the 4 face-voice combinations, even though they did not attend differently to the displays. In addition, infant facial affect was more positive at 3 1/2 months because smiling at displays was more reliable at this age. The analysis of infant "interactiveness" revealed that 3 1/2-month olds in the Static condition were more "interactive" than those in the Dynamic condition. A supplementary analysis of a questionnaire that was designed to measure parents' perceptions of their infants showed that almost 1/5th of the attrition at 2 months could be accounted for by infants' tendencies to respond negatively to novel experiences. The results of this study are discussed in terms of their implications for future research in infant perception. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cry pitch and attributions that crying infants had or had not been abused on the perceptual ratings of maltreating and comparison parents. Twenty maltreating parents and 20 comparison parents rated 12 cries which varied in the pattern of their fundamental frequency on (a) the cry's similarity to their own child's cry, (b) the likelihood that the crying infant would be abused in the future, (c) 5 perceptual items and (d) 7 caregiving response items. Attributions of whether the crying infant was "abused" or "not abused" were varied before each cry sound during the ratings of the perceptual and caregiving response items. Results showed that as the pitch of the cries increased, all parents rated the cries' as less similar to their own infant's cries and the crying infants as more likely to be abused. Maltreating parents, however, rated mixed- and high-pitched cries as more similar to their own child's cries than comparison parents did. Generally, more sympathetic perceptions and responses were given to "abused" infants. However, perceptions of how "arousing" and "distressing" cries sounded were equally high for high-pitched "abused" and "not abused" infants' cries. Maltreating parents were more likely to "ignore" cries, and their ratings of urgency for mixed- and high-pitched cries were lower than comparison parents' ratings. The results are discussed within the framework of how children may contribute to the development of their own abuse or neglect. / M.S.

Previous studies have reported that spontaneous startles occur most frequently in the quiet sleep states, and have posited an energy release model in which spontaneous startles occur to release energy which would otherwise wake the infant. An alternative suggestion is that startles serve a homeostatic function by increasing the activity of the infant during periods of low arousal. The purpose of the current study was to examine the function of spontaneous startles using the ongoing cardiac and respiratory activity as indices of arousal. Twenty-six newborn infants were assigned to two groups. The first group was exposed to auditory stimulation which previously had been shown to decrease heart rate and respiratory rate for the first half of the one hour observation period. To the extent that spontaneous startles are related to periods of low arousal, decreasing the ongoing activity via the auditory intervention was expected to increase the rate of startles. The second group received no auditory stimulation. The occurrence of spontaneous startles was preceded by periods of lower than average heart rate and decreasing respiratory rate. Startles were followed by periods of increasing heart rate and further decreasing respiratory rate. In addition, the auditory intervention group reliably showed both a lower heart rate and an increased number of startles while exposed to the auditory stimulation, while the nonintervention group showed comparable rates of startles and heart rates in both halves of the observation period. Further, regardless of group status, most infants had their higher rate of startles in the period in which they had their lower heart rate. Finding lower heart rate and decreasing respiratory rate preceding startles, and lower heart rate and increased number of startles when exposed to the auditory stimulation, suggests that spontaneous startles modulate periods of low arousal in newborn infants. / Ph. D.