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Spontaneous head positions in infants during the first 9 postnatal months

✍ Scribed by Carla L. Barnes; Karen S. Cornwell; Dr. Hiram E. Fitzgerald; Dr. Lauren Julius Harris

Publisher
John Wiley and Sons
Year
1985
Tongue
English
Weight
505 KB
Volume
6
Category
Article
ISSN
0163-9641

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ Synopsis

The developmental organization of spontaneous head positioning over the Erst 9 postnatal months of life was investigated in a study of 35 infants. Head positions assumed by infants while at rest were recorded at 11 observation periods: at 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks of age, and every 4 weeks thereafter until the infant was 36 weeks old. Results indicated an overall tendency toward a head-right position, which was strongest during the neonatal period, but declined with age. The head-right position bias was qualiiied by familial handedness.

The newborn infant's directional head positioning has been identified as one of the first behavioral signs of laterality. (Cf. Harris & Fitzgerald, 1983.) When lying supine, most newborn infants spontaneously orient their heads to the right of midline about 70 to 80% of the time (Gesell, 1938;Michel, 1981;Turkewitz, Gordon, & Birch, 1965). Turkewitz and Birch (1971) found the right bias to be so compelling that they proposed it as a sensitive indicator of neurobehavioral organization and suggested that deviations from the rightward bias may be symptomatic of neurobehavioral disorganization. In support of this hypothesis, Turkewitz and Birch (1971) reported finding a weaker head-right bias among low-Apgar newborns than among high-Apgar newborns. The hypothesis, however, has not been supported consistently. Although proportionately more normal infants show consistent head-right bias than head-left bias, the proportion of normal infants with head-left bias seems unreasonably large Parts of the current report were presented at the

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