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Expressive language was consistently more impaired than receptive language over 24 months, further supporting an earlier finding that expressive language was differentially affected by HIV in children with symptomatic disease. Both receptive and expressive language declined significantly after 24 months despite antiretroviral therapy, although overall cognitive function remained stable. Thus, functioning in some domains may be more vulnerable to the effects of HIV and global measures of cognitive ability may mask such differential changes in specific brain functions.

Mother-infant interaction was assessed on 32 first- and second-born siblings when each was 3 months old. Data were colleted during 2 6-hour naturalistic home observations using a modified time-sampling technique. The sample consisted of 4 equal-size subgroups of same and opposite sex sibling pairs. Results suggested that interaction between a mother and her infant varied depending on the birth order and gender of the infant. Mothers spent significantly less time in social, affectionate, and caretaking interaction (except for feeding activities) with their second borns than they had with their firstborns; this difference was greater if the second born was female. Certain patterns of maternal behaviors appeared to be stable from one sibling to the other. Different types of interaction between the mothers and their younger infants were related to attention-seeking behavior in the firstborn male and female siblings.

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