Parental stimulation of high-risk infants in naturalistic settings.

The realization that infants needed to be in a stimulating environment was born of the maternal-deprivation literature. Early studies suggested that an infant's own mother was required for healthy infant development, but reviews of these reports suggest a variety of methodologic flaws. This article examines the mother-infant interaction with the possibility of capturing the quality, variety, and timing of each partner's behavior.