There is a major change taking place in the manner that emotions are conceptualized. The change is one in emphasis, from structuralism to functionalism. Structuralism is marked by several defining features, including attempts to derive a taxonomy of basic emotions, the search for autonomic, facial, or central nervous system responses that have close to a one-to-one relation with internal emotional states, and a relative neglect of the role of intentionality in the generation of emotion. In contrast, functionalists propose that one cannot understand the nature of emotion without understanding what the person is trying to do, and how events in the external or internal environment have an impact on such strivings. Functionalists also stress the importance of conceptualizing facial, vocal, and gestural behaviors as signals that affect the behavior of other persons, and not just as outward signs of internal states. Because emotions are manifested in very flexible ways, functionalists steer their investigations away from the search for a "gold standard " by which an emotion can be operationalized. Functionalism also has major implications for studying how feeling and emotion are interrelated, and understanding how culture influences emotion and emotional development. Functionalist Perspective on the Nature of Emotion The field of emotion is changing rapidly and, in the process, shifting its philosophical

Because of its biological adaptive value, wariness of heights is widely believed to be innate or under maturational colltrol. In this report, we presellt evidence colltrary to this hypothesis, and show the importance of locomotor experience for emotional developmellt. Four studies bearing on this conelusion ha\'e SIIOWII that (1) when age is held constant, locomotor experience accounts for wariness ofheights; (2) "artificial' , experience locomoting in a I~'alker generates evidence ofwariness of heights; (3) an orthopedically handicapped infant testid longitudinally did not show wariness of heights so long as he had no locomotor experience; and (4) regardless of the age when infants begin to crawl, it is the duration of locomotor experience and not age that predicts avoidance of heights. These findings suggest that when infants begin to crawl, experiences generated by locomotion make possible the development of wariness of heights.

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Important relational changes in thefamily system during the second half of the first year of lije are brought about when children begn to walk. Socioemotional Transformations in the Family System Following Infant Crawling OnsetJoseph J. Campos, Rosanne Kennoian, Marcia R. ZumbahlenThe purpose of the study reported here was to examine whether the new experiences brought about by the onset of self-produced locomotion affect the emotional climate of the family. Our working assumption was that the onset of crawling generates changes in the relation between infants and their social and nonsocial environments, and that such changes serve as setting events for changes in the quality and intensity of the expression of affect by both the parent and the infant.The most pervasive reason for expecting important changes in emotionality in both the parent and the newly mobile infant is ecological in character. As infants begin to move independently, they are more likely to engage in behavior unacceptable to the parents, such as manipulating dangerous or fragile objects. These encounters make the infant a likely

Neonatal microstructural development in the posterior limbs of the internal capsule (PLIC) was assessed using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) fractional anisotropy (FA) in 24 verylow-birthweight preterm infants at 37 weeks' gestational age and compared with the children's gait and motor deficits at 4 years of age. There were 14 participants with normal neonatal FA values (seven females, seven males; born at 27.6 weeks [SD 2.3] gestational age; birthweight 1027g [SD 229]) and 10 participants with low FA values in the PLIC (four females, six males; born at 28.4 weeks [SD 2.0] gestational age; birthweight 1041g [SD 322]). Seven of the 10 children with low FA and none of the children with normal FA had been diagnosed with CP by the time of gait testing. Among children with low neonatal FA, there was a strong negative correlation between FA of the combined left and right side PLIC and log NI (r=-0.89, p=0.001) and between FA and GMFCS (r=-0.65, p=0.04) at 4 years of age. There was no correlation between FA and gait NI or GMFCS at 4 years of age among children with normal neonatal FA. This preliminary study suggests neonatal DTI may be an important predictor of the severity of future gait and motor deficits.Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common motor disorder in children born preterm, affecting over 15% of very-low-birthweight (VLBW) preterm infants (less than 1500g, less than 32wks gestation). Currently, most children with CP do not receive a specific prognosis or treatment plan until they present with gait deficits. Treatment depends on the severity of gait deficits, which range from toe walking in the mildly impaired, to a crouched, rotated gait in the more severely impaired. 4 Among children with CP who are not walking by age 2 years, only 10% walk independently by age 7 years. 25 This indicates a need for early and accurate prognosis, at an age when there is optimal neuronal plasticity and treatment may improve motor control, prevent growth related deformities, and reduce the need for orthopaedic surgery.The brain structure-function relations that influence motor control development in preterm children are not well understood. Previous studies have reported a global association between damage to neonatal white matter (WM), such as periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), in the region of the posterior limbs of the internal capsule (PLIC) on MRI and the risk of developing CP. 5,6 Selective vulnerability of the internal capsule (IC) to hypoxia-ischemia is thought to result from insufficient vascularization of the developing blood supply in the periventricular region in preterm infants. 5 Damage to WM, including PVL, is thought to be the major cause of motor dysfunction in preterm children with spastic CP. 3,6,7,8,17 A recent study of brain MRI in adolescents with CP found that motor dysfunction was more strongly correlated with the severity of damage in the IC and precentral gyrus than with the total WM volume loss. 22 These findings are consistent with the neuroanatomy. The descending motor axons of the corticospinal t...