Discovering the competent handicapped infant

Michael Lewis, PhD Professor and Director Institute for the Study of Exceptional Children Educational Testing Service Princeton, New Jersey APARTICULARLY important competence for young infants is their ability to detect and utilize cooccurrences. This competence, embedded in the changing concept of infants in general, has particular importance for a process-oriented cognitive curriculum for handicapped infants. The different kinds of cooccurrences, their structure, and the mechanisms by which infants detect them are three aspects to consider in the study of infants' competence. Because the handicapped infant has special difficulties in experiencing these cooccurences, impairments are likely to result. The Contingency Intervention Project is a process-oriented approach which offers some hope for the improvement of handicapped infants' competence. What is meant by the detection and utilization of cooccurrences? Consider the following examples:

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