Desarrolo infantil

Infant Developement
The cognitive and motor development of 123 infants adopted from China (n = 58), East Asia (n = 39, 20 from Vietnam, 8 from Taiwan, 7 from Thailand, 3 from South Korea, and 1 fromCambodia), and Eastern Europe (n = 26, 25 from Russia and 1 from Belarus) was assessed close to the time of arrival, 3 and 6 months later, and at 2 and 3 years of age. Infants’ age at time of arrivalranged from 4 to 18 months (mean age for China group = 11.26 months; East Asia = 8.23 months; Russia = 10.13 months). Most of them were living in orphanage before adoption. Infants were assessedusing the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (Bayley, 1993). Data on the sociodemographic characteristics of their adoptive families, on parenting practices, parenting stress, and anthropometricmeasures, including infants’ weight, height, and head circumference percentiles, and weight/height and height/age ratios (indices of acute and chronic malnutrition, respectively), were also collected. At timeof arrival, children presented cognitive, motor, and physical delays, as well as health problems. However, in the first few months following adoption significant improvements were observed in most ofthem. Hierarchical linear modelling analyses revealed important individual variations in cognitive and motor development at time of arrival and in the following years. A better height/age ratio and ayounger age at arrival were associated with higher initial scores of mental development (MDI), while motor scores (PDI) at arrival were best explained by height/age ratio and presence/absence ofneurological signs. Infants who had lower MDI and PDI scores at time of arrival generally tended to gain more thereafter. The evolution of cognitive scores from time of arrival to 3 years of age was bestpredicted by the presence/ absence of neurological signs, while the evolution of motor scores was best explained by height/ age ratio and region of origin. Except for annual income, the variables...