HEART RATE RESPONSE HABITUATION IN HIGH-RISK PREMATURE INFANTS

The hypothesis suggested by Luria (1963) that infants with central nervous system damage fail to habituate to repeated stimulation was tested using an experimental group whose clinical course suggested a relatively high probability of CNS damage, a control group matched for age in weeks since conception, and a group of normal, fullterm infants. An auditory stimulus at 80 db SPL was presented for 3 sec at 20-sec intervals. Heart rate change averaged across time on Trials 1–5 and Trials 26–30 were compared. The hypothesis was not confirmed, since significant habituation was found on Trials 26–30 for all groups. However, latency of response was significantly longer in high-risk Ss. A developmental trend toward decreased latency of response with increasing gestational age was identified.