Infant and Child Development最新文献

Object retrieval skills requiring means-end exploration are an area of relative weakness in young children with Down syndrome (DS). The current pilot study examined the object retrieval skills of a small sample of young children with DS for tasks with varying level of complexity. Thirteen children with DS (31.55 ± 4.14 months) and 13 mental age-matched typically developing (TD) children (17.31 ± 1.64 months) completed three tasks involving retrieving a toy from a transparent box (Task 1), an opaque box (Task 2) and a transparent box hidden inside an opaque box (Task 3). Both DS and TD group performed similarly for the simpler Task 1, but for Tasks 2 and 3, the DS group had a lower success rate, less frequent use of complex asymmetric hand actions and/or longer execution times compared to the TD group. Future studies should examine the developmental trends and specificity of means-end exploratory behaviours in children with DS.

Adolescents living in peri-urban communities are more vulnerable to risky behaviours such as substance use. This was a cross-sectional study carried out to determine the prevalence, risk and protective factors of adolescent substance use in peri-urban communities in Abuja. Data on lifetime and current substance use were collected using the Youth Risk Behaviour Survey Instrument. Data on risk and protective factors of adolescent substance use, based on the Problem Behaviour Theory, were also collected. Using the SPSS software, descriptive analysis was conducted to summarise the data. Bivariate analysis was conducted using chi-square and independent t-tests, and multivariate analysis was conducted using logistic regression. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. The prevalence of lifetime substance use was 22.8%, whilst current substance use was 18.5%. The consumption of mixed drinks was the most currently used form substance at 8.1%, followed by alcohol (5.7%) and shisha (4.7%). Multivariate analysis showed that self-esteem (0.007), delinquency (p < 0.001) and parent alcohol use (p = 0.045) were independently associated with adolescent substance use. There is a high prevalence of substance use amongst adolescents living in peri-urban communities in Abuja, Nigeria, as well as a new pattern of substance use consumption. The findings showed that some risk factors identified by the problem behaviour theory were independently associated with adolescent substance use, whilst the protective factors were not. There is a dire need for adolescent substance use interventions in peri-urban communities that addresses certain risk factors.

Despite increasing advocacy for gender equality, gender prejudice and discrimination persist. The origins of these biases develop in early childhood, but it is less clear whether (1) children's gender attitudes predict discrimination and (2) gender attitudes and discrimination vary by ethnicity and US region. We examine these questions with an ethnically (Asian, Black, Latinx and White) and geographically (Northeast, Pacific Northwest, West, Southeast and Hawaii) diverse sample of 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 605) who completed measures of gender attitudes and discrimination in a preregistered study. Children, across groups, demonstrated more positive attitudes towards their gender ingroup. Children who showed more pro-ingroup attitudes also showed more pro-ingroup behavioural discrimination. Girls showed stronger ingroup favouritism than boys, but ethnic and regional groups generally did not vary in levels of bias. These findings contribute to our understanding of how gender intergroup biases develop and highlight the generalizability of these processes.

The current study explores whether individual differences in the dimensional adjectives (e.g., big, tall) children understand, relates to individual differences in two non-verbal spatial abilities, spatial scaling and mental transformations, in bilingual children. The inclusion of English–Spanish bilingual children broadens the work in this area which has previously focused strictly on English language. Ninety-two English–Spanish bilingual children between 37.65 and 71.87 months (42 male) participated in the study. Results show number of dimensional adjectives preschool children comprehend utilizing a new interactive, tablet-based task relates to performance on non-verbal spatial tasks. This research supports hypothesized relations between spatial language comprehension and spatial abilities, introduces an effective tool for examining spatial language comprehension in young children, and improves generalizability by including a bilingual sample and testing comprehension in both English and Spanish.

Emotion regulation (ER) refers to the ability to regulate emotional reactions in response to stimuli. Social communication involves the knowledge and skills to engage in social interactions. Both processes develop in the first years of life and form the foundation for later functioning. Literature suggests a bidirectional relationship between ER and social communication; however, the majority of research examines these constructs independently. This review provides an in-depth examination of research that has measured the relations between ER and social communication in children from 2 years of age and onwards. Findings revealed an age-related pattern, where ER was related to later social communication and vice versa. However, there was no consensus regarding direct relationship(s) between ER and social communication due to heterogeneity among studies when defining and measuring these constructs. This review illustrates the importance of understanding the pathways between ER and social communication and may inform future studies, both in typical and atypical development.

The effects of academic achievement may extend beyond economic success to influence social functioning, including future parenting. To evaluate whether adolescent academic achievement forecasts future parenting (both positive and negative) and the family home environment of parents. We used prospectively gathered intergenerational data from a population-based birth cohort born in 1972/1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand, including data from Generation 1 (parents of the birth cohort), the birth cohort (Generation 2; G2), and G2's children (Generation 3). Adolescent academic achievement in G2 was used to predict observed and reported parenting outcomes when offspring (G3) were aged 3 years after controlling for a range of covariates, including G2's adolescent wellbeing, early childhood socioeconomic status (collected from G1), and G2's age at child's birth. We also evaluated 2-way interactions between academic achievement and G2 parent sex, G3 child behaviour, and G2 adolescent wellbeing. Greater G2 academic achievement, net of controls, predicted more positive and less negative parenting (for mothers only), and a more positive home environment. For the home environment outcome, the effect of adolescent academic achievement was moderated by wellbeing. Adolescent academic achievement may positively influence parenting behaviour and the quality of the home environment.

When I took over as Editor of Infant and Child Development in 2020, I sought, among other things, to establish the journal as a welcoming outlet for opinions, perspectives and commentaries, as there are few outlets for such work in developmental science. I also wanted to be sure that those opinions, perspectives and commentaries were not just coming from the ‘usual suspects’, those who already held considerable status and access to power in the field.

My original intention was that the special issue would be published as the first issue of the year. As many people have noted, the 2021–2022 academic year was particularly challenging as many institutions began to ‘return to normal’ amidst the pandemic. At Infant and Child Development we seek to promote a healthy research and work culture, and thus we were quite flexible with deadlines. The result: the special issue is published as the last issue of the year rather than the first. Nevertheless, it is once again a fantastic collection of articles. Please take the time to read them.

A final note: there were three additional articles that were meant to be published as part of this special issue, but due to a production error were published in the previous issue. These papers, by Fong et al. (2023), Hendry and Scerif (2023) and Veldkamp and Kemner (2023), are just as good as all of the others, and are part of this special issue, at heart.

Students racialized as Black often experience forms of marginalization and encounter unique obstacles in their educational paths. As a result, more inclusive and tailored forms of support should be developed. Working to better support Black students should be initiated through two complementary sides—through that of the instructor and the scientist. First, we consider the importance of identity-safety and detail identity-based barriers Black students experience in their learning environments. We then define the notion of cognitive universals and discuss how it limits the effectiveness of science and its translation to more inclusive practices. We argue that to strengthen tailored forms of student support, we must move beyond focusing only on cognitive universals and more carefully consider heterogeneity of effects. To support our argument, we present evidence-based strategies from cognitive and learning science and educational interventions research to combat identity-based barriers and boost learning gains. Overall, we urge instructors and scientists to consider a variety of techniques to create more identity-safe and inclusive learning environments for Black students.

Experimental research on language acquisition and development regularly employs auditory stimuli as part of the methodology. This project analyses the apparent standard practice of using female speakers to produce these experimental materials and the potential consequences of such a practice. To situate the discussion in the current scientific landscape we present a systematic review of published literature between 2017 and 2022 to establish how prevalent this practice is. The review finds a strong bias in favour of female-spoken stimuli across publications in a curated set of nine journals. We discuss this result in light of gender-based workplace inequality, changing caregiver expectations and the reliability of infants' assumed female voice preference. This project seeks to encourage researchers to consider how diversifying the stimuli used in these types of studies would lead to both a more inclusive and representative research landscape, as well as ensure that our research results are generalizable.

Deciding whose words to trust profoundly impacts children's knowledge acquisition. In evaluating informants' trustworthiness, children are attentive to their social dominance. Previous studies have shown that children's trust preferences may differ across cultures based on the dominance of the informant: children in Western cultures prefer to trust in testimony from dominant informants, whereas children in Eastern cultures prefer to trust subordinate informants (Bernard et al., 2016; Charafeddine et al., 2019). We aim to investigate the potential cultural difference in the trust preferences of European American children (in the United States) and Chinese children (in China) from informants of varying levels of dominance, using a more refined method to assess children's trust preferences. We propose that different levels of authoritarianism – advocacies to obey authorities – in Western and Eastern cultures may explain the potential difference in children's selective trust. Specifically, as impacted by societal cultures, Chinese parents may possess a higher level of authoritarianism than European American parents and may place a higher emphasis on obedience in their parenting. Consequently, Chinese children may show stronger trust preferences from subordinate informants over dominant informants than European American children. Our research will offer insights into the potential mechanism underlying children's different learning preferences across cultures.