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Structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used increasingly to investigate typical and atypical brain development. However, in contrast to studies in school-aged children and adults, MRI research in young pediatric age groups is less common. Practical and technical challenges occur when imaging infants and children, which presents clinicians and research teams with a unique set of problems. These include procedural difficulties (e.g., participant anxiety or movement restrictions), technical obstacles (e.g., availability of child-appropriate equipment or pediatric MR head coils), and the challenge of choosing the most appropriate analysis methods for pediatric imaging data. Here, we summarize and review pediatric imaging and analysis tools and present neuroimaging protocols for young nonsedated children and infants, including guidelines and procedures that have been successfully implemented in research protocols across several research sites.

High-frequency cortical activity in humans and animals has been linked to a wide variety of higher cognitive processes. This research suggests that specific changes in neuronal synchrony occur during cognitive processing, distinguished by emergence of fast oscillations in the gamma frequency range. To determine whether the development of high-frequency brain oscillations can be related to the development of cognitive abilities, we studied the power spectra of resting EEG in children 16, 24 and 36 months of age. Individual differences in the distribution of frontal gamma power during rest were highly correlated with concurrent language and cognitive skills at all ages. Gamma power was also associated with attention measures; children who were observed as having better inhibitory control and more mature attention shifting abilities had higher gamma power density functions. We included a group of children with a family history of language impairment (FH+) and thus at higher risk for language disorders. FH+ children, as a group, showed consistently lower gamma over frontal regions than the well-matched FH- controls with no such family history (FH-). We suggest that the emergence of high frequency neural synchrony may be critical for cognitive and linguistic development, and that children at risk for language impairments may lag in this process.

A prospective, longitudinal study of a low birthweight, preterm cohort examined the effects of maternal knowledge of child development and concepts of child rearing on the quality of home environment and on child cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Measures of maternal knowledge at 12 months were found to be significantly associated with the quality of the home environment, the number of child behavior problems, and to a small but significant extent child Stanford-Binet IQ at 36 months. Maternal characteristics were associated with both maternal knowledge and maternal behavior. Child characteristics, including birthweight, were not associated with maternal knowledge or concepts of development for most of the cohort. Subgroup analyses by race/ethnicity revealed a similar pattern of results. However, a measure of neonatal health status was shown to be significantly associated with cognitive outcome in the African-American subgroup at 24 and 36 months.