Emotional distress and control in young children.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to C B Kopp.
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Fifteen preschool-age children with mild mental retardation (developmental delays) from mainstreamed schools were observed during two structured play sessions with matched peers without mental retardation. Children with developmental delays spent more time alone and when they played, showed less social play. The two groups did not differ on communication behaviors that maintained play or in negative affect; however, the children with developmental delays evidenced more disruptive entry, more regressive behaviors, and less positive affect. Families were interviewed concerning their attitudes about, and teaching of, social skills. For the children without mental retardation, level of social play was positively related to the family's teaching and the child's communication abilities. For the children with delays, social play related to developmental age and communication ability but not to family teaching.
There are currently no neurologic examinations designed for pre-term infants with sufficient data to determine neurologic deviance at various gestational or conceptional ages (gestational age plus age from birth). In this study a neurologic examination standardized for full-term newborn infants was administered to 97 full-term newborn infants was administered to 97 full-term newborn infants and 97 pre-term infants at their expected date of birth, 40 weeks' conceptional age. The pre-term infants had more weak responses than did the full-term infants despite being at a higher level of activity state throughout the examination. The pre-term infants also had more asymmetric responses. There was no correlation between gestational age and the incidence of weak responses in the pre-term infants, but the pre-term infants of lowest birth weight at all gestational ages had the greatest number of weak responses. The latter may be because pregnancy and neonatal problems contribute more to the neurologic findings than does the length of gestation.
Neurological organization and visual fixation were found to be unrelated in a group of premature infants tested at their term date. These results are discrepant with those obtained with a sample of full term infants. Separate comparisons made of the neurological and fixation data revealed one significant group difference from the fixation data; all other analyses were nonsignificant. The discrepant findings may have occurred because prematures are subject to developmental disparities in the regulation of arousal, neuromuscular, and visual systems due to differential impact of preterm extrauterine life.
A previously demonstrated high rate of failure on a Stage 6 sensorimotor means-end problem, of children otherwise inferred to be in Stage 6 development, prompted a study of task characteristics of the problem. A component part of the task was modified by introducing an additional visual cue; the purpose of the problem was unchanged. Results indicated that problem solving was facilitated in the transformed condition, with older subjects performing somewhat better than younger subjects. The authors suggest that cognitive requirements of the problem, as representative of Stage 6 sensorimotor development, remained the same in the original or transformed condition. The modification appeared to permit children to focus their attention on the requirements of the problem, so that a greater number of children demonstrated mental representation. Task characteristics of sensorimotor problems need to be investigated further.