ABSTRACT
This chapter adopts the psychological perspective that builds on the work of Jean Piaget and adds a functional dimension. It shows that Piaget's inputs to clinical development psychology are an epistemological background, which guides the clinical approach as well as the care provided to the children. The functional approach takes the environment of the baby into account, whereas an epistemic subject is not confronted as such with the constraints of its environment. The environment of a premature baby, full of unusual equipment meant to ensure the baby's survival, does not deliver the types of stimulus, which is usually processed through the sensorimotor system of the newborn. The chapter describes the variations of the sensorial fluxes present in premature baby's environment through an evaluation of the noise of the surveil-lance devices, the variations of the light, the distance between the incubators and the objects lying in the baby's immediate environment.
