Ninety-five newborns born preterm and sick, who require 3 or more days of intensive care, and their lower social class families, will participate in a longitudinal study from birth through 13 months of age. The goal will be to implement and assess, for infants at biological and social risk, an early home intervention program that through its focus on supporting partental attachment to the infant, will promote the infants social/emotional development. Forty-five infants and their families will constitute the intervention group, and there will be 50 controls. Additionally, 20 infants and their families will be recruited for a cross-sectional control group at outcome. There will be assessments at the time of discharge of the infant from the hospital, and 1,4,8 and 13 months post term date, which will be used to compare the intervention and control groups as to infant medical status, mother-infant interaction, parental attitudes towards themselves and their infant, and parental life situations.
| Beckwith, L; Rodning, C; Cohen, S (1992) Preterm children at early adolescence and continuity and discontinuity in maternal responsiveness from infancy. Child Dev 63:1198-208 |
| Beckwith, L; Cohen, S E (1989) Maternal responsiveness with preterm infants and later competency. New Dir Child Dev :75-87 |
| Rodning, C; Beckwith, L; Howard, J (1989) Prenatal exposure to drugs: behavioral distortions reflecting CNS impairment? Neurotoxicology 10:629-34 |
| Beckwith, L (1988) Intervention with disadvantaged parents of sick preterm infants. Psychiatry 51:242-7 |
