Ultimately, exposure to touch and touch intervention during infancy
profoundly influences a variety of outcomes. Ottenbacher and colleagues
(1987), in their meta-analytic review of 19 massage studies of infants/children,
demonstrated that tactile stimulation was beneficial for motor, cognitive, social, physiological, and development, in general. Wyschograd (1981) and
Weber (1990) even posit that quality touch is a primary factor in the socialization
of higher-order emotional processes like sympathy and empathy.