Differences In Motor Development Research Articles

This study describes the behavior of 24 healthy full-term newborn Gusii infants of Kenya, using the Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale. The Scale defines the infant's motor and social behavior and state and physiological organization. This behavior was then correlated with biomedical assessments done during the antecedent pregnancies and during the newborn period. Findings included: a)the quality of the infant's motor performance was unique in our experience in its synthesis of increased yet balanced tone with slow, smooth, large-arced movement; overshooting, startles or tremors were rarely sacn; b)state changes were slow and gradual leading to long periods of alertness; c)performances on all items were stable over the first ten days; this is in marked contrast to American samples which show a characteristic “recovery curve”; d)pre- and perinatal, biomedical and cultural factors placed these infants at high-risk for poor neonatal outcome; this made their organized and stable behavior all the more impressive. A comparison is made to an American sample of low risk infants. On all scale items, the Gusii infants performed at least as well as the American group, and scored significantly higher in three areas: motor maturity (p < .001), general tone (p < .001) and startles (p < .05). These findings will be discussed in three contexts: 1)the cultural variations in pregnancy risk factors, 2)the question of differences in motor development between black and white infants, and 3)the contribution of the infant's behavior to his caregiver within a specific cultural milieu.

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