Attachment interaction behavior between young teenage mothers and their infants.

Behavioral interaction between teenage mothers and their infants was explored. Twenty-six (low income level) Hispanic teenage mothers (mean age 15 years) and their infants (mean age 13.5 months) were compared with an older control group of 30 mothers (mean age 26 years) and their infants (mean age 14.0 months). Infant attachment, exploration, and stress-adaptation behaviors and maternal ability to contact, encourage, and comfort the infant were evaluated. Twenty-six percent of the control infants showed limited ability to cope with stress compared to 47% of infants of teenage mothers. Control mothers differed significantly from teenage mothers in effective eye, verbal, physical contact, and smiling behaviors. These findings suggest that limited teenage maternal behaviors may potentially have a negative psychologic effect for both infants and their young mothers.

Deficits in space-form perception in patients with sex chromosome mosaicism (45,X/46,XY).

Several studies have shown that selective deficits in space-form perception are found in patients with Turner's syndrome, associated with 45,X or a structural anomaly of an X chromosome. The authors sought to determine whether significant deviations from normal or from Turner's syndrome (relative to space perception) occur when a Y chromosome is present. The four patients studied, aged between 4 1/2 and 24 years, had a karyotype of 45,X/46,XY and a phenotype ranging from sexual ambiguity at birth to typical Turner's syndrome. Although all were in the normal intelligence range (IQ 80 or above), on testing they demonstrated below-average ability in tasks involving visualization of spatial forms, and their drawings were generally immature. The results suggest that patients with sex chromosome mosaicism X/XY may have similar deficits in space-form perception and orientation to those previously demonstrated in Turner's syndrome.