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The article presents introduction to several article published in the June 1998 issue of the "Infant Mental Health Journal." This special issue of the journal presents highlights from the Sixth World Congress of the World Association for Infant Mental Health in Tampere, Finland, held in July 1996. The special sub-themes cover theories of early intervention, techniques of early intervention in different situations, evaluating and follow-up on intervention, and how to learn and teach early intervention. Submissions for this special issue deal with new data and perspectives, such as interventions in autism and infancy and the diagnosis of precursors of conduct disorders, while others present the link between infant mental health issues and perinatal psychopathology and interventions.

Distressed infants may withdraw from social interaction, but recognising infants' social withdrawal is difficult. The aims of the study were to see whether an infant observation method can be reliably used by front line workers, and to examine the prevalence of infants' social withdrawal symptoms. A random sample of 363 families with four, eight or 18-month-old infants participated in the study. The infants were examined by general practitioners (GPs) in well-baby clinics with the Alarm Distress BaBy Scale (ADBB), an observation method developed for clinical settings. A score of five or more on the ADBB Scale in two subsequent assessments at a two-week interval was regarded as a sign of clinically significant infant social withdrawal. Kappas were calculated for the GPs' correct rating of withdrawn/not withdrawn against a set of videotapes rated by developer of the method, Professor Guedeney and his research group. The kappas for their ratings ranged from 0.5 to 1. The frequency of infants scoring above the cut off in two subsequent assessments was 3%. The ADBB Scale is a promising method for detecting infant social withdrawal in front line services. Three percents of infants were showing sustained social withdrawal as a sign of distress in this normal population sample., (Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)