In another study, Harlow found that young monkeys reared with live mothers and young peers learned to play and socialize with the other young monkeys. Although the monkeys with the cloth mothers were slower than those with live mothers, they seemed to catch up within a year. Babies raised with real mothers but with no playmates were often either fearful or inappropriately aggressive.
Tiffany Field and her colleagues (1986) decided to test whether regular touch might help tiny premature infants. She randomly assigned 40 preterm infants from a hospital's newborn intensive care unit to either receive touch therapy (experimental group) or not (control group). All of the premature infants lived in isolettes, plastic-covered bassinets designed to prevent infection. This touch therapy involved gently stroking the baby with warmed hands (no gloves) through portholes in the isolette for 15 minutes, three times a day for 10 days. Over the treatment period, babies who received touch therapy gained significantly more weight than those who did not, even though they did not eat more. Later research showed the same effect in weight gain when mothers touched their preterm infants. Touch also leads to reduced stress levels in premature babies.
Today massage therapy is used to help people with developmental disorders, such as autism. A study of Qigong, a Chinese touch therapy, showed improvement in sensory, social, and basic living skills.
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