Bowlby and Ainsworth focused on the attachment behavior of the infant/child at about 1 year of age.  They suggested that it is based on security and survival in that proximity to mother (primary caregiver) is based on feeling safe and being safe.  Their work centered around first, suggesting that it is this sense of safety coupled with newfound mobility - the ability to crawl and walk - and second, to challenge the Freudian notion of that oral drive satisfaction is the basis.  Their work suggested for the first time that safe base behavior and attachment were emotionally/relationally based. 

Almost simultaneously, the work of Renee Spitz opened up  the issue of touch and relationship deprivation for infants in the crib, as based on his studies and films of babies in orphanages. His babies were so touch deprived that their heads were malformed and that the babies actually became developmentally delayed and, in the language of his time, mentally retarded.  Many died. He really changed the field as much as Bowlby and Ainsworth.  

Another big name was White, who did his research on monkeys, using infant primates and coupling them with either a monkey "mother" made of wire or one made of cloth.  The infant monkeys clearly demonstrated a preference (through studies and experiments of their behavior) for the cloth "mother", suggesting that tactile interaction plays a huge part in the relationship.

Currently, Harry Chugani out of Wayne State did PET (brain) scans of infants in Romania and produced the first hard data that touch deprivation effects the physical development of the brain.  His work resulted in definitive recognition that touch is the only sense without which a child will die.

The research you are almost certainly referring to, from your timing and description probably comes from Spitz.

Joanne McCrory    
in my final year of grad school in child development, specializing in infancy 

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