No abstract

Infants with low birth weight (LBW ≤ 2,500 g) are at high risk for developmental delays, including cognitive impairments. Retrospective studies have shown that these children often have learning and/or behavioral difficulties at school age. Early evaluation and enrollment in early intervention (EI) programs may reduce the impact of these difficulties; however, many children who would benefit from such programs may not receive EI services. This study provides information on 279 children born LBW and includes information on developmental capability and EI enrollment. Results indicate that children born LBW in EI services had lower overall developmental standard scores than those not in EI. However, it is concerning that almost an equal number of children across all categories of birth weight are not in services.

The purpose of this study was to consider maternal contributions to the development of spontaneous mastery. Thirty infants with cerebral palsy and 31 normally developing infants were videotaped in solitary free play and developmentally assessed at 18 months of age. Mastery behavior was assessed using the spontaneous mastery measure (Hmcir, Speller, & West, 1985) an adaptation of the Belsky and Most (1981) play scale, and scores were calculated from the free play situation. Maternal involvement was observed using the Parent/Caregiver Involvement Scale (PCIS) (Farran, Kasari, Comfort, & Jay, 1986). Mothers' ability to adapt their interactions to the developmental needs of their children was assessed. The results showed that mothers in the two groups did not differ in the quality and appropriateness of interaction with their infants. Matemal involvement scores contributed significantly to both sponanteous mastery and developmental level regardless of risk status. Implications for service providers are to focus their intervention not only on risk factors but also on protective factors, including parental adaptability and competence, that may influence the infant's developmental outcomes.Both Piaget (1952) and White (1959) explained developmental progress in terms of children's attempts to master the environment. White's innovative paper on effectance motivation served as the model for the development of the construct of mastery motivation. He characterized children's focused attention, exploration, and organizational actions toward the environment as reasonable indicators of their motivation. He describes their behavior as selected, directed, and persistent, serving an intrinsic need to cause an effect on the environment.Early studies empirically testing this construct included the work of Harter (1975;Harter & Zigler, 1974), who examined mas-tery motivation in preschoolers versus 10-year-olds as well as motivational behavior in retarded and nonretarded children.Yarrow and his colleagues (Yarrow, Morgan, Jennings, Harmon, & Gaiter, 1982;Yarrow et al., 1983) first attempted to study mastery motivation in infancy. These authors defined mastery motivation as persistence in goaldirected behavior influenced by attention to and interaction with the environment. A common theme in these studies is the importance of environmental influence on the development of mastery motivation. Assessment of mastery occurred both in structured laboratory settings (Jennings,