Some milestones in premature infants at 6 to 24 months

Abstract

The onset of 12 milestones that occur from 6 to 24 months of age was studied in premature and full-term infants. The milestones are: sitting, crawling, teething, walking, pursuit of a hidden sound-making object, stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, "no" gesture, words, phrases, speech "no," and speech "yes." It was hypothesized that premature infants would show delay in acquiring milestones related to time separated from mother. Compared to full-terms, the prematures had no significant difference in the means for the onset of the milestones except for: sitting, crawling and walking related to maternal separation; and crawling and teething, related to birth weight.

Prematurity stereotype: Effects of labeling on adults' perceptions of infants.

“…These differential perceptions may then lead to a self-fulfilling prophesy whereby parents treat premature infants in such a way as to elicit the expected behavior. Evidence suggests that parents do treat premature and full-term infants differ-ently (e.g., Bakeman & Brown, 1980;DiVitto & Goldberg, 1979;Field, 1979;Goldberg, 1978;Sugar, 1977), and the infants themselves show some differences in behavior, at least during their first year (Parmalee, 1975). The extent to which parent behaviors are a function of a prematurity stereotype as opposed to responses to the infant's behaviors, and the extent to which infants' behaviors are in response to parental treatment rather than a function of being premature, cannot be assessed in naturally occurring parent-infant relationships.…”

Consistent caretakers in the premature nursery

“…Perhaps. Premature infants from this nursery showed no statistical difference from that of full term infants for onset age of following, 2-hand-eye coordination, recognition of mother's voice and recognition of mother's face [9], stranger anxiety, separation anxiety, pursuit of a hidden sound making object, speech words, speech phrases, no gesture, speech no and speech yes [16].The infants' hunger reflex movements [17] provide an attachment stimulus which is responded to by the consistent caretakers since, as they said, they "feel there is a person present" to whom they may relate when the infant rubs and touches them. The aides spontaneously "mothered" as Hess [2] suggested, became attached to the premature and had separation-mourning reactions when the infants left.…”