The Impact of an Insult or Disability from Birth on Infants' Ability to Organize and Interpret Multiple Sources of Information

Abstract

Observing the behavior of at-risk infants as they interact with their environment may provide information about the way in which they organize and interpret multiple sources of information. This study was conducted at a regional neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) follow-up clinic to investigate the impact of a stressful birth on infants' performance during selected tasks. Infants between the adjusted ages of 91 days and 240 days were observed during three tasks that required integrating multiple stimuli: (a) a task of spatial perception, (b) a task of intermodal representation of speech, and (c) a contingency learning task. Seven birth-status variables (gestational age, birthweight, adjusted age, length of ventilation, 5-minute Apgar scores, parent education, and parent income levels) compiled from hospital records were compared to seven performance variables (reach, vision, smile, fuss, attention, speech, and contingency). Multiple regression analyses were applied to the data. Findings from the study indicate that (a) mechanically ventilated infants were more irritable than nonventilated infants, (b) infants from lower-income families were fussier than infants from higher-income families, (c) lower-birthweight infants were more successful on the visual task than higher-birthweight infants, (d) 5-minute Apgar scores were more predictive of infants' success than 1-minute scores on the visual task, (e) older infants were more accurate during the reaching task than younger infants.