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Motor debility in infants and children of ten- times will effect education in that there is a maturational lag, deficit or modification of the neural system. Dr. de Ajuriaguerra and his co-workers have developed criteria or semeiology to study the evolution of motor debility in children. They felt that the use of the same criteria which judges adults was inaccurate for children. The results of this study will be of value to all who work with or are concerned about the field of learning disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To want a child and to want to have a child are notions receiving renewed interest ever since the generalization of contraception and even more recently, the new methods of procreation. These two notions are compared and tested against biological data across historical, psychoanalytic and sociological works. A brief resume of research done with mothers of newborns underlines the ambiguity and the complex and dynamic character of the question. The desire for a child and the desire to have a child are different notions and one should discriminate between them.

Study of 18 anatomo-clinical observations with dilatation of the cerebral ventricles (without vascular, degenerative or other cerebral lesions), and neuropsychiatric syydrome during the senile period of life. In the morphological and pathogenetic point of view, for one half of these cases a traumatic, microhemorrhagic, or inflammatory aetiology could be taken into consideration; for the other half, the hydrocephalus could be considered as idiopathic.

This article consists of a review and a report on work carried out in the Laboratory of Developmental Neuropsychology of the Collège de France. Are considered: 1) Ethological and psychoanalytical concepts. 2) The role of the skin in the evolution of the infant-mother relationship during the foetal, neonate and first years of life. 3) Examples of types of manifestations where the skin is involved in interactions--cuddling, snuggling, hugging and its relationship to clinging, kissing, tickling. Finally, the theme of culture and touching is discussed. It is shown how mutual affective functioning is born out of shared pleasureful skin-yo-skin experiences in primordial situations of security and body-to-body dialogue.

Soaring movements-in an opisthotonic posture-which appear between 3 and 10 months when the infant is in a prone position, have been observed with cinematographic recordings. This is a postural and kinetic activity which takes place during the first year's development; i is a transitional stage leading to intentional propulsive movements. This activity may become a repetitive one for some children, especially between 4 and 7 months; at this peak period, it takes on an unusual aspect, not only because of the "aerial" attitude but also because of the rhythmicity of the postural changes which characterize it. This behavior has been studied in its evolutionary forms, its individual characteristics, and its emotional expressions. Hovering movements are localized in the neuro-psychological evolution of the infant (tonico-postural evolution, acquisition of balance in a prone position, alternating postures, propulsive movements). The conditions which set off and quieten this activity explain the dynamics of its functioning between movements to which the baby is submitted and deliberate ones, between constraint and pleasure.