Nonhandicapped infants exhibit a number of manual strategies in their explorations that are suited to examining the salient aspects of particular objects. With maturity, simple strategies, such as mouthing, are replaced by more complex behaviors, such as fingering object surfaces, transferring objects from one hand to the other, and rotating the object with both hands. High-risk pre-terms exhibit the complex strategies less than full-terms and low-risk pre-terms. Object manipulation at 9 months predicted Bayley Mental Scale scores at 24 months. Suitable interventions can enhance the development of manipulation skills.
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