SEPARATION-ADAPTATION TO NURSERY SCHOOL, SOUTHERN CALIF. PSYCHOANALYTIC INST., BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF.

(By Kato Van Leeuwen)

Beginning date, January 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $5,000.

(1) Purpose: The investigator plans to conduct a study exploring factors facilitating or interfering with a child's ability to cope with separation upon initial adaptation to nursery school. The study is set in the context of the psychoanalytic literature on separation, and the current practice of starting children in a nursery school at increasingly early ages. The investigator sees the nursery school as a unique setting in which to examine the effects of repeated minor physical separations as opposed to reports from the literature on prolonged major separations from the mother. Her preliminary observations on 100 nursery school children aged 2 to 4 indicated that one third were able to leave the mother fairly readily within the first two weeks. Another third manifested anxiety considerably beyond this period. Apparently the other third showed no effects. (4) Subjects: Three groups of 8 children will serve as subjects: (1) Those entering the Little George Nursery School between the ages of 21⁄2 and 32. (2) Children with comparable characteristics who were on the waiting list but were not admitted and remained at home, and (3) Children with comparable characteristics who were admitted to other schools at ages 21⁄2 and 31⁄2.

(5) Method: The aim of this project is to establish criteria for nursery school readiness by studying separation-adaptation in relation to age, maternal attitudes, concurrent circumstances, and previous traumatic separations. Assessment will begin at the time the family comes in to discuss admission, not knowing whether or not they will be accepted (i.e., three months before nursery school entry). All three groups will also be studied at home just before starting school and again after 3 months. Observations will be made by a psychiatrist and a nonpartisan observer.

(2) Results: None to date.

(3) Implications: Hopefully, this study will add to our understanding of separation-adaptation to nursery school.

Abbreviated title of project: Cognitive Development and Cognitive Socializa

tion.

Professional personnel engaged on project: Alfred L. Baldwin, 513-30-8748, Director for Research in Education and Professor, Psychology Dept. and Dept. Child Development and Family Relationships; Clara P. Baldwin, 122-09-9715, Sr. Research Associate, Center for Research in Education, Cornell Universty; Boyce L. Ford, 530-16–1331, Research Associate, Center for Research in Education, Cornell University.

Beginning date, Sept. 1, 1968; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $141,128.

Name and address of applicant organization: Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. This research project, part of a program on cognitive development and cognitive socialization, studies the cognitive structures guiding people's adaptive behavior in interpersonal situations. This cognitive structure is labelled "naive psychology" because some of the basic concepts of it were described by Fritz Heider under that label.

This research program has in the past developed instruments for describing the naive psychology involved in judging the actions that harm or benefit other people, and their development in children. We have developed a measure of children's concepts of kindness, and a measure of subjects' expectations of benevolence, self interest and equalitarianism in others.

The proposed research has four parts: 1. A continuation of the present research on judgments of acts that harm or benefit others. 2. A study of the naive theory of the psychological consequences of success and failure in various circumstances. We will also develop an instrument for assessing subjects' expectations of others' ability, level of aspiration, and motivation. The instrument can be used to study differences among various groups of subjects acting as judges, e.g. teachers, black parents, schizophrenic mothers. It can also be used to study a subject's expectation of different types of actors, e.g. ghetto children, a parent's own child, etc. 3. The study of the development of these concepts in children, and of the acquisition process. We believe that the socialization involves particularly the informal verbal interaction of adults and children. 4. The study of parents' and teachers' intuitive judgments of how learning takes place. We have evidence

that parents engage in many specific kinds of educational acts, like hints and reminders, socratic questioning, correcting the child's statements in various ways. These reflect a complicated underlying intuitive theory of learning and development, whose elucidation should help us understand the socialization process. Abbreviated title of project: "Diet, Trytophan Metabolism and Mental Disorders."

Professional personnel engaged on project: Dr. Irene R. Payne, 521-24-4823, Associate Professor of Nutrition, Food and Nutrition Department.

Name and address of applicant organization: Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Ill. 62901.

Beginning date, January 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $5,888.

For many years, it has been recognized that diet and mental health are interrelated. It has been difficult to determine whether poor diet has precipitated mental illness or mental illness has brought about poor eating habits. It is the predication of this research that poor dietary habits are often the direct cause of mental illness in persons who otherwise would be able to withstand the emotional strains of life.

The objectives of the proposed study are (1) to determine the adequacy of the daily diet of patients entering a mental institute for the first time, based on the recommended daily allowances of specified nutrients established by the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. (2) To determine quantities of known metabolites of the amino acid tryptophan excreted in the urine of entering patients at a state mental institute.

KNOWLEDGE PLUS INTUITION IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT, BRIARCLIFFE COLLEGE, BRIARCLIFFE MANOR, N.Y.

(By Myrtle B. McGraw)

Beginning date, February 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $5,000.

(1) Purpose: This project plans to continue an experimental instructional program that has been developed at Briarcliff College.

(4) Subjects: College students, mothers and their infants serve as subjects. (5) Method: The students are sophomores who have already had two courses in developmental psychology. Each is assigned an infant and mother with whom she works during the year. A one-way observation booth, wiring for instrumental recording of activities taking place in the laboratory and equipment designed to expand newly developing functions in the infant's behavior repertoire will be employed. The student's problem is to detect signals of any emerging function and then select ways of providing challenge for its advancement. Students are also supposed to detect signs that the reinforcement of a particular activity should be reduced because another is emerging. Student and infant performances in the laboratory are observed by the instructional staff and will be recorded on video tape for subsequent analysis jointly by the student and the staff. Because video tapes are most useful for review of situational happenings but too expensive to be retained as permanent records. 8 mm films which can be edited and made available for future instruction will be made from time to time. Progressive records of each student's progress this year and follow-up data on these students when they go into local nursery schools and kindergartens. For practice teaching next year will, however, make possible some comparison of their sensitivity and communicative awareness with student-teacher contemporaries who have not participated in the laboratory program. The staff is also planning to explore means of evaluating the effect of the experience on the cooperating mothers.

(2) Results: None to date.

(3) Implications: This project plans an innovative approach to the teaching of childhood development via direct laboratory experience with children.

Abbreviated title of project: Disturbances of Juvenile Role Identity (RG). Professional personnel engaged on project: Peter M. Bentler, 571-48-6471, Assistant Professor; Department of Psychology.

Name and address of applicant organization: University of California, Los Angeles, Calif. 90024.

Beginning date, June 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969; $46,285.

There is every reason to believe that the majority of sexual deviations observed in adults stem from improper gender identification in childhood, yet virtually nothing is known scientifically about extremes in juvenile gender anomalies. Knowledge regarding the characteristics of children possessing these difficulties must be established, its environmental context studied, and procedures for modifying sex-inappropriate behaviors developed. Practical procedures for assessment and behavior change should make possible the identification and elimination of gender deviations in childhood prior to the time that these behaviors become so rigidly fixed that they are essentially completely unamenable to therapy.

A large number of children possesing gender anomalies will be identified. They will be studied with respect to their physical status, psychological makeup, and home environment. Detailed analyses will be undertaken to determine the situations which elicit sex-inappropriate behavior, the nature of the inappropriate behaviors, and the consequences to the child which serve to maintain the behavior. Both experiments performed with individual subjects using experimental analysis of behavior procedures and experimental-control group studies will attempt to delineate crucial variables which can be used to eliminate the undesired characteristics. Practical procedures for assessing the extensiveness of the problem in a child will be developed, as will procedures which can be used by parents and teachers to modify the disturbances. Finally, an attempt will be made to insure that these procedures become known to parents, teachers, and other professionals for routine use.

Abbreviated title of project: Relationships between Childbearing Motives and Mothering.

Professional personnel engaged on project: Viola W. Bernard, M.D. (557-484463) Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Director of Division of Community and Social Psychiatry: Ann Ross Miller, Ed. D. (003-03-4305) Research Psychologist, Department of Psychiatry.

Name and address of applicant organization: College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, 630 West 168th Street, New York, N.Y. 10032. Beginning date, April 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $6,440. The purpose of the proposed investigations is to follow up a sample of mothers whose childbearing motives and conflicts were studied in an earlier research in order to (1) explore possible relationships between motivations and anticipations expressed prior to parenthood and actual mothering experience, (2) to try out and develop suitable methods for assessing salient differences in maternal experience and mother-infant interaction and (3) to formulate hypotheses for further systematic investigation of the relationship between particular patterns of childbearing motivations and maternal performance.

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The specific focus of the exploratory study will be on determining whether differences in motivational patterns, evaluated prior parenthood are sociated with differences in the relative evidences of difficulties encountered by the mother in caring for her infant and in adapting to emergent needs and capacities associated with successive phases in development over the first year of life.

In long range perspective, research is directed towards identifying motivational patterns which may be predictive of difference in maternal performance and mother-infant interaction.

Abbreviated title of project: Personality Development in the Kibbutz. Professional personnel engaged on project: Leslie Y. Rabkin, Ph. D., 054-281818, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Rochester.

Name and address of applicant organization: University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y. 14627.

Beginning date, February 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $6,550.

During the past two years, the investigator has been engaged in an extensive and intensive psychological study of personality development in an Israeli collective settlement (Kibbutz), a project supported from June 1, 1966 through May 31, 1968 by grants from the Public Health Service (NIMH). This project has been in the nature of a follow-up and extension of work done nearly a generation ago by the anthropologist Melford E. Spiro, and has been carried out in the same Kibbutz studied by this investigator.

In this way, the project has been structured primarily as a longitudinal study. Access to the original, unpublished psychological materials gathered by Spiro has allowed for a far fuller study of personality development than the usual cross

sectional approach, through re-examination of the individuals previously studied, as well as their offspring.

Material of various kinds has been gathered-psychological test protocols, interview data, and observational records on every aspect of individual and community life.

The investigator's present objective is the analysis and writing-up of this extensive data in the belief that the material will prove valuable for the study of psychological development and cultural institutions.

Abbreviated title of project: Comprehensive Health in a Model Cities Neighborhood.

Professional personnel engaged on project: (1) Robert H. Abramovitz, M.D., 379-34-9503, Assistant Professor, Depts. of Pediatrics and Psychiatry; (2) Sandra P. Boltax, M.D., 190-30-3757, Assistant Professor, Depts. of Pediatrics and Psychiatry; (3) Charles E. Robinson, 303-26-9017, Instructor in Social Work, Dept. of Pediatrics; (4) Leonard Fichtenbaum, 067-18-1843, Research Associate, Depts. of Public Health and Pediatrics; (5) Rudolph V. Sellers, 426-44-4262, Research Associate, Depts. of Pediatrics and Public Health; (6) Cornell Scott, 429-72-5822, Lecturer, Depts. of Public Health and Pediatrics.

Name and address of applicant organization: Yale University School of Medicine, 338 Cedar Street, New Haven, Conn.

Beginning date, December 1, 1968; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $156,768.

This program will demonstrate that broadening and integrating mental health services within the framework of a comprehensive health care program is an effective way of providing such services. Specific Objectives: (1) Maximize effectiveness and increase self-esteem and power by having neighborhood control of planning, development, and management. (2) Primary prevention by utilization of a health team to prevent disease and improve the quality of life. (3) Secondary prevention to increase resistance of individuals and families to varying life stresses (i.e., infectious diseases, poor nutrition, poor or absent obstetric care, and psychological and social stresses). (4) Tertiary prevention which will focus on treatment and rehabilitation for those with chronic health problems and functional impairments. (5) Increase communication, understanding, and satisfaction between consumers (i.e., patients) and providers (i.e., staff) by creating a program with emphasis on mutual responsiveness, responsibility and commitment. (6) The reduction of the social, cultural, and financial barriers to the delivery of all health services to low-income children and youth and their families. Reduction of the utilization gap for all health services between the poor and the non-poor to increase the actual and perceived sense of well being. (7) Maximize availability and accessability of community-based health services to eliminate inappropriate and unnecessary use of hospital emergency room and in-patient units. (8) Development of training programs and health service jobs for Hill residents and proper identification and utilization of human resources, talents and skills which abound in any community. (9) Identification of health problems in the Hill through a partnership of residents and health workers and public and private resources-collaborative design of appropriate program responses to identified problems-reduction of the feedback time between problem identification and action toward resolution. (10) Continuous reassessment and restatement of goals in relationship to changing community health needs.

Abbreviated title of project: DNA in Neonatal Brain.

Professional personnel engaged on project: Alan B. Goodman, Assistant Professor, Physiology and Biophysics, 398-32-3705.

Name and address of applicant organization: Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo. 80521.

Beginning date, April 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $6,589. Children suffering from severe protein malnutrition exhibit abnormal behavior. Infants approximately six months of age at the time of development of the severe malnutrition exhibit a permanent low score on psychomotor test. These and other studies support the idea that severe protein deficiency early in life causes permanent retardation of mental development and that this may result from a decrease in the total number of brain cells.

Zamenhof, VanMarthens and Margolis have recently reported that the brains of newborn rats from mothers maintained on low protein diets during gestation and 30 days previous are deficient in DNA. Such deficiencies have been shown to be permanent. The question arises as to whether this deficiency is general throughout the brain or whether it is located in discrete areas

A fluorescent technique for determining brain DNA is available that allows determination of DNA in very small regions of the brain. The purpose of this research will be to investigate the location of the DNA deficiency by this method. Mental Health Small Grant Committee, December 5-7, 1968.

Requested: $5,000; Recommended: $5,000. Recommendation: Approval; Priority: 322.

Resume of committee critique: This study is to examine the effect of maternal malnutrition on the content of DNA in various regions of the brain of newborn rats. The committee felt that this was a good proposal in an important area, with both theoretical and applied significance. Approval was recommended.

Abbreviated title of project: The Meaning of Infant Vocalizations.

Professional personnel engaged on project: 1. BECKWITH, LEILA, 044–14– 3713, Instructor, Department of Psychiatry; 2. ROE, KIKI, V., 559-60-0730, Postgraduate Research Psychologist IV, Department of Psychiatry.

Name and address of applicant organization: UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, Calif. 90024.

Beginning date, April 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $6,162.

The main objective at the present is to continue a longitudinal study of infant vocalizations that has been in progress for about 12 years with 26 normal infants who are presently 16-17 and 22-23 months old (Two age groups). (See enclosed dissertation). The main present research interest is to explore whether certain infant developmental variables and particularly the patterns of the frequency of infant vocalizations at different infant age levels are meaningful predictors of the subsequent cognitive and emotional development of the child.

Data is already available on the frequency of prelinguistic sounds of these infants as well as of several other measures of their cognitive and emotional development (Such as their scores on the Gesell Developmental Schedules, their stranger-anxiety etc.). In addition measures of the child-mother verbal interaction as well as of the mother's personality (as ascertained by the MMPI) and her attitudes towards infant rearing are also available. Much of this data needs to be analyzed and whatever has been analyzed needs to be prepared for publication.

There is an urgent need to get support now so these infants can be followed up in the immediate future, when they are 2, 21⁄2 and 3 years old. Additional measures of their frequency of vocalizations, their cognitive and language development as well as measures of their emotional behavior and of their verbal interaction with their mother and a stranger (E) will be ascertained when they are 2, 21⁄2 and 3 years old, so that some relationships may be found between these measures and the Ss' earlier ones. Relationships will also be sought between the mother's personality, infant rearing attitudes and amount of her verbal interaction with her baby and the child's subsequent development.

In the initial part of this study a negative correlation was found between the amount of the mother's talking to the infant and the infant's number of meaningful words at 15 months. It will be interesting to see whether this relationship holds for the second group of infants and for different age levels.

Abbreviated title of project: Effect of Correction on Learning.

All professional personnel engaged on project: Stephen L. Carmean, 355-302546, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology.

Name and address of applicant organization: Western Washington State College, Bellingham, Wash. 98225.

Beginning date, April 1, 1969; cumulative dollars, none; fiscal year 1969, $6,307. To determine the relative effectiveness of corrective and noncorrective procedures for children of 4 through 14 years of age when they are engaged in discrimination learning. It has previously been found that 9 year olds learn faster with noncorrective and 18 year olds with corrective procedure. The proposed study would extend this finding and test a possible explanation.

Abbreviated title of project: Effects of Thiamine Deficiency on Operant Responding.

Professional personnel engaged on project: H. Kent Merrill, Ph.D., 528–56– 4539, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Principal Investigator; Clark J. Gubler, Ph.D., 528–16–9935, Professor, Department of Biochemistry, CoInvestigator.

Name and address of applicant organization: Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84601.