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Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale
19:15

Assessment and Evaluation of the High Risk Neonate: The NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale

Published on: August 25, 2014

The influence of perinatal risk status on contingency learning in six- to thirteen-month-old infants

W S Millar1, C G Weir, G Supramaniam

  • 1Department of Psychology, University College London, United Kingdom.

Child Development
|April 1, 1992
PubMed

Insights

Infants with perinatal respiratory issues show impaired contingency learning. High-risk infants struggled with learning cause-and-effect, unlike well babies, impacting their processing of information.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Infant Learning
  • Perinatal Health

Background:

  • Infant learning and contingency awareness are crucial for cognitive development.
  • Perinatal complications, particularly respiratory issues, may impact early cognitive processing.
  • Understanding these effects is vital for identifying developmental risks.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how perinatal respiratory complications affect manipulative response learning in infants.
  • To examine the role of feedback contingency and location in infant learning.
  • To compare learning abilities between well infants and infants at risk due to perinatal factors.

Main Methods:

  • Assessed learning in 6-13-month-old infants (well and at-risk) using contingent vs. yoked feedback conditions.
  • Manipulated feedback location (local vs. remote).
  • Observed response acquisition during conditioning and extinction phases.

Main Results:

  • Well and low-risk infants learned contingent feedback locally; high-risk infants did not.
  • Remote feedback yielded no response acquisition across groups.
  • High-risk infants exhibited different extinction patterns, suggesting altered contingency awareness.

Conclusions:

  • Perinatal respiratory compromise significantly affects infants' ability to process contingency information.
  • Risk status is a reliable predictor of learning performance in this context.
  • Findings highlight the long-term impact of early respiratory challenges on cognitive development and information processing.

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