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BackgroundThe literature has recognized premature birth as a risk factor for infant development and maternal anxiety. This study investigated the impact of the severity of birth weight, as well as of maternal anxiety at 3 months of infants’ corrected age, on infants’ outcomes during the 1st year postpartum. Moreover, it described the longitudinal trajectories of developmental outcomes, additionally exploring the impact of anxiety.MethodsThe study compared 147 mothers and their 147 newborns, differentiated in 25 Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW), 41 Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), and 81 Full-Term (FT) infants. At 3, 9, and 12 months (corrected age in the case of preterm infants) the level of infants’ development was investigated according to the 5 quotients (Locomotor, Personal and Social, Hearing and Language, Eye-hand Co-ordination and Performance) of the Griffiths Mental Development Scales (GMDS-R). During the assessment of 3 months, mothers fulfilled Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) to evaluate the presence of generalized anxiety.ResultsAmong the 5 GMDS-R quotients, significant effect of severity of birth weight emerged only for Performance quotient: preterm infants (ELBW at 3 months; VLBW at 12 months) showed lower scores than FT ones. Moreover, this quotient decreased from 3 to 9 and to 12 months for VLBW and FT infants, while it was stable for ELBW ones. A significant interaction between severity of birth weight and maternal anxiety emerged for Hearing and Language and Locomotor quotients. In the first case, scores for ELBW infants, independently from maternal anxiety, decreased from 9 to 12 months. The same results emerged for VLBW infants, in the case of non-anxious mothers. Regarding Locomotor quotient, mean scores decreased from 3 to 9 and to 12 months for all groups in the case of non-anxious mothers. Conversely, when mothers were anxious, this decrease emerged only for VLBW infants. Lastly, ELBW, VLBW and FT showed difference in the growth and slope of the trajectories of different quotients.ConclusionThe severity of birth weight for preterm infants, also in interaction with maternal anxiety, had significant and specific impact on different dimensions of infants’ development. Clinical implications of these results underline the need for individualized interventions.

Clothing production increasingly occurs in global value chains. Industrial policies typically recommend ‘upgrading’ (increasing labour productivity by becoming more skill- and capital-intensive and producing higher valued products) yet firms can and do move up and down the value chain when profitable opportunities arise. This paper uses United Nations Industrial Development Organisation data on remuneration, output and employment to identify recent national development trajectories for the clothing industry. Upgrading trajectories can be pro-labour (have a rising wage share of value added) or pro-capital (a rising profit share). Pro-labour trajectories can deliver rising average wages and employment (e.g. India and China) or higher average wages for fewer workers (e.g. Sri Lanka). Pro-capital trajectories can also deliver higher average wages and employment growth (e.g. Vietnam) or rising wages for fewer workers (e.g. South Africa). Downgrading trajectories are typically associated with falling average wages but can be associated with rising average wages (as in Turkey). The desirability of a particular development trajectory depends on the economic context, especially labour market conditions. Upgrading trajectories are to be expected when unemployment is low and there is upward pressure on wages. Where unemployment is high, employment objectives are most quickly met through downgrading trajectories in which aggregate labour productivity falls as labour-intensive activities expand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interlanguage is a concept that is manifest in any trajectory of language change in a learner: typical first language, second language or language disorder. To understand those trajectories we need a rich psychological model of what creates them. This paper applies one such model-Sharwood Smith and Truscott's Modular On-Line Growth and Use of Language model (MOGUL)-to childhood developmental language disorders, and suggests that the model's components of language processing and their interaction shed significant light on why children with a wide range of different language disorders exhibit the language behaviours that are the characteristic of their diagnoses. Following a brief summary of the MOGUL model, the paper explores the impact on language development of differences in sensori-motor input, in the functioning of the various modules and the interfaces between them, and in the storage and activation of memory. Like Relevance Theory, with which the paper makes a direct connection, MOGUL encourages one to take a view of developmental language disorder as emerging from the same set of psychological resources as typical development (first or second) but as being the result of adjustments to, or compensations for, differences in how the various modules function and connect with each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I am trying to present a view whereby development is seen as cultural and transpersonal `tracks of development' within which individuals have to find their direction. Three different approaches to the analysis of life-tracks are indicated. There are crucial decision points in a person's development, and a person's decision-making process at these points is analyzed from the point of view of his or her perception of his or her `opportunity situation'—what are the alternatives that are psychologically plausible and available for him or her? (Hundeide, 2003b). This raises the question of positioning and acquiring the critical access skills that give entrance to different life-careers. A major point in this paper is that skills and competencies are contextually contained within what I have described as `lifestyle packages'. Certain identity- and style-markings may be important access skills or criteria for getting entrance into certain communities, which again invite and direct the novice into certain life-tracks—which may be more or less irreversible. This point is further explored with regard to creating a basis for understanding the attraction of new Nazi movements to marginalized unsuccessful youngsters, with regard to life careers in a slum community, and with regard to intervention, in the sense of how marginalized youngsters in a situation of school failure, unemployment and delinquency can be `untracked' into more positive life-tracks or careers. The conditions for development and personal change are briefly discussed at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The literature has recognized premature birth as a risk factor for infant development and maternal anxiety. This study investigated the impact of the severity of birth weight, as well as of maternal anxiety at 3 months of infants' corrected age, on infants' outcomes during the 1st year postpartum. Moreover, it described the longitudinal trajectories of developmental outcomes, additionally exploring the impact of anxiety., Methods: The study compared 147 mothers and their 147 newborns, differentiated in 25 Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW), 41 Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW), and 81 Full-Term (FT) infants. At 3, 9, and 12 months (corrected age in the case of preterm infants) the level of infants' development was investigated according to the 5 quotients (Locomotor, Personal and Social, Hearing and Language, Eye-hand Co-ordination and Performance) of the Griffiths Mental Development Scales (GMDS-R). During the assessment of 3 months, mothers fulfilled Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) to evaluate the presence of generalized anxiety., Results: Among the 5 GMDS-R quotients, significant effect of severity of birth weight emerged only for Performance quotient: preterm infants (ELBW at 3 months; VLBW at 12 months) showed lower scores than FT ones. Moreover, this quotient decreased from 3 to 9 and to 12 months for VLBW and FT infants, while it was stable for ELBW ones. A significant interaction between severity of birth weight and maternal anxiety emerged for Hearing and Language and Locomotor quotients. In the first case, scores for ELBW infants, independently from maternal anxiety, decreased from 9 to 12 months. The same results emerged for VLBW infants, in the case of non-anxious mothers. Regarding Locomotor quotient, mean scores decreased from 3 to 9 and to 12 months for all groups in the case of non-anxious mothers. Conversely, when mothers were anxious, this decrease emerged only for VLBW infants. Lastly, ELBW, VLBW and FT showed difference in the growth and slope of the trajectories of different quotients., Conclusion: The severity of birth weight for preterm infants, also in interaction with maternal anxiety, had significant and specific impact on different dimensions of infants' development. Clinical implications of these results underline the need for individualized interventions., (Copyright © 2020 Neri, Genova, Monti, Trombini, Biasini, Stella and Agostini.)