PREMATURITY, POSTURE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF LOOKING BEHAVIOR DURING EARLY COMMUNICATION

This study concerns the developing relationship between motor control and looking behaviour in full term (N = 15) and pre-term (N = 29) infa nts during face-to-face interaction with the mother at 6, 12 and 18 we eks of corrected age. Infants with inborn errors or major medical comp lications were excluded. In the pre-term infants the development of he ad and arm postures during interaction differed from the full term pat tern, especially in infants born before 32 weeks and/or small-for-gest ational age. The full term infants were more advanced than other infan ts in the ability to grasp an object. These findings were related to g roup differences in looking behaviour, suggesting that differences in the development of looking behaviour may be (partly) accounted for by differences in the development of motor control.