Newborns of mothers with depressive symptoms are less expressive

The facial expressions of 40 newborns of mothers with depressive symptoms ( n = 20) and of nondepressive mothers ( n = 20) were recorded during the Brazelton Neonatal Behavior Assessment Scale and during the modeling of happy, sad, and surprised faces. Infants of mothers with depressive symptoms demonstrated inferior performance on the orientation cluster of the Brazelton scale and showed fewer interest and more precry expressions during the Brazelton. During the facial expression modeling, they showed less orientation and fewer facial expressions in response to the modeled happy and surprise facial expressions

One-Year-Old Infants of Intrusive and Withdrawn Depressed Mothers

This study examined behaviors of intrusive/depressed versus withdrawn/depressed mothers and their one-year-old infants during a structured teaching interaction. Group comparisons revealed that intrusive/depressed mothers showed more positive responses, more demonstrating toys, and more physical guidance, and their infants demonstrated less toy manipulation. Withdrawn/depressed mothers maintained infant play more frequently and showed more restricted affect, and their infants demonstrated less affective behavior, both positive and negative. These findings suggested that exposure to depressed mothers' nonoptimal interaction styles represents different types of risk to infants' cognitive and affective development

Brief report: imitation effects on children with autism

Twenty children with autism (mean age, 5 years) were recruited for the study from a school for children with autism. The children were randomly assigned to an imitation (n = 10) or contingently responsive (n = 10) interaction group based on a stratification table for gender and developmental and chronological age. The sessions consisted of four phases, with each phase lasting 3 minutes. In the first phase, the child walked into a room that was furnished with a sofa, a table, chairs, and two sets of identical toys. An adult was in the room sitting very still like a statue (first still-face condition). In the second phase, the adult either imitated the child or was contingently responsive to the child. In the third phase, the adult sat still again (second still-face condition), and in the fourth phase, the adult engaged in a spontaneous interaction. During the third phase (the second still-face condition), the children in the imitation group spent less time in gross motor activity and more time touching the adult, as if attempting to initiate an interaction. The contingency condition appeared to be a more effective way to facilitate a distal social behavior (attention), whereas the imitative condition was a more effective way to facilitate a proximal social behavior (touching)

Preschoolers' Cognitive Performance Improves Following Massage

Preschoolers (Mage = 4 years, 4 months) were given WPPSI subtests, including Block Design, Animal Pegs and Mazes, before and after receiving a 15-minute massage or spending 15 minutes reading stories with an experimenter. Results revealed that performance on Block Design improved following massage and accuracy was greater on Animal Pegs in the massage group, particularly in more temperamental children. *This research was supported by an NIMH Research Scientist Award (#MH00331) and an NIMH Research Grant (#MH46586) to Tiffany Field and a grant from Johnson and Johnson to the Touch Research Institute. The authors wish to thank the children, parents and teachers for participating in this study. We also thank Claudia Thyssen and the volunteer massage therapists for helping with data collection