Infancy最新文献

While social withdrawal is a normal defense mechanism displayed by infants to regulate interactions, it can negatively impact infant development when it becomes chronic, leading to delays in motor, cognitive, and communication difficulties in later development. Infant withdrawal was associated with low levels of parental sensitivity (i.e., the capacity of a caregiver to perceive the child signals and to respond to them accurately with an appropriate timing during interactions) in mothers. Few studies have yet been conducted in fathers and even fewer have investigated these questions in both parent–infant dyads within families, so that the joint effects of maternal and paternal sensitivity on infant social withdrawal remain unknown. We investigated within- and between-dyad associations between parental sensitivity and infant withdrawal during interactions with both parents in a sample of biparental families (n = 61) and their 3-month old infant. Results showed that higher paternal sensitivity was associated with lower infant withdrawal during father–infant interactions. The same effect was weaker in mothers and only significant when the effect of paternal sensitivity on infant withdrawal during mother–infant interaction was not taken into account. These results offer new insights about the reciprocal influences between the mother–infant and the father–infant relationships.

Human infants seem to make positive social inferences about individuals who imitate others. In three preregistered experiments we test if these inferences include an expectation that imitators will be helpful, and also ask if the inferences infants make are about imitators' dispositions or primarily about their relationships. In each experiment 8- to 9-month-old infants saw one individual imitate, and another individual not imitate, the same target social partner. When the imitator and non-imitator had the opportunity to help the target individual they had previously interacted with, infants looked longer when the non-imitator helped than when the imitator helped. However, when the potential recipient of help was a new social partner, infants' looking did not differ when the imitator or non-imitator helped. Overall, these results support the hypothesis that infants perceive imitation as prosocial or affiliative and thus expect imitators to be helpful. However, these expectations are limited to inferences about a specific prosocial relationship between the imitator and their target.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, children were repeatedly confronted with people wearing facial masks. Little is known, however, about how this affected young children's interactions with their caregivers. This preregistered experimental within-participants study explored whether facial masks influence young children's initiation and response to joint attention. Using two structured tasks and one free-play task, we measured joint attention episodes in interactions of 12- to 15-month-old Swiss infants with one of their caregivers during the pandemic. In one experimental condition, the caregivers wore a facial mask; in the other, they did not. The results show no significant differences in infants' joint attention between the two conditions. Infants may have interacted with their caregivers wearing facial masks enough previously not to be influenced by masks; alternatively, even with a partially covered face, a person provides enough information via eyes and other body parts that help infants to guide their attention.

Children's ability to identify relevant object features, such as shape, plays a key role in learning object names. However, successful attention to shape (shape bias) is dependent on other factors, including children's vocabulary size as well as opportunities for object exploration. The current study explored the combined impact of both vocabulary and object exploration on attention to shape and their cascading impact on retention of object labels. Here, 336 17-to-30-month-old children completed a Novel Noun Generalization (NNG) task and were tested on retention of exemplar name-object pairings. Children in a pre-familiarization condition physically explored objects before every trial; children in a no-familiarization condition did not. Vocabulary (via MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory) significantly predicted attention to shape, and higher rates of shape-match exploration yielded a stronger shape bias. However, object exploration did not impact NNG performance or retention, and children struggled to retain word-referent mappings. Though attention to shape is thought to support learning, exploratory analyses revealed that children's NNG performance did not predict retention. The results suggest that vocabulary significantly influences word learning processes but object exploration may not offer support. Future research should consider how task demands and other cognitive abilities impact word learning.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented situation for families worldwide, with its potential impact on child development remaining uncertain, particularly within Latin American communities. This study aimed to analyze child development in children from Costa Rica and Mexico who grew up during COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional study was conducted using a convenience sample of 183 children; a historical control group of Costa Rican children (n = 171) was also included. Child development was assessed using the EDIN-II in Costa Rica and the EDI in Mexico, along with a parental questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and logistic regression analysis were performed, with a significance level of 0.05. Significant differences were found when comparing the risk of development delay, particularly in the overall score and the fine motor domain score. The probability of overall delay was associated with the child's sex, age, maternal education level and whether the primary caregiver role was shared by both parents or fulfilled by a single parent. In Costa Rica, the development of children assessed post-pandemic was lower than that of children assessed pre-pandemic. The probability of these delays was associated with growing up during the pandemic, child's sex, and families' Socioeconomic Development Index. These results contribute to understanding child development during the COVID-19 context and provide a foundation for future research.

The Face-to-Face Still-Face (FF-SF) procedure has been a popular paradigm to understand infant behavior. The current study examines the validity of mothers' behavior during the Still-Face phase of the FF-SF, especially the quality of her neutral face and its impact on infant arousal (N = 358 ethnically-diverse mother–infant dyads, Mean infant age = 223 days, SD = 27 days). Results showed that more than half of the mothers in the sample breached one or more Still-Face phase instructions; however, mothers' breaches of the Still-Face instructions were unrelated to infant arousal (Skin Conductance Responses) during the FF-SF. Additionally, facial analysis revealed that along with a neutral quality to the Still-Face, mothers also displayed significant levels of facial emotion during the Still-Face phase. Higher levels of scared and/or sad expressions during the Still-Face were associated with higher infant arousal during the Still-Face phase. The current study helps us to understand the real-life implementation of the Still-Face during the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm. Results indicate that mothers show considerable non-compliance with Still-Face phase instructions, and the infant arousal levels are associated with emotional expressions contaminating the quality of mothers' neutral faces.

The developmental importance of infant gesture use is well established, yet few investigations examine what adults can do to facilitate infant gestures. We used an event lag with pauses sequential analysis to generate an index of association between each adult interactional strategy and deictic infant gesture during ten-minute play interactions with 27 typically developing infants (11–25 months) and trained interventionists. We ran correlations to examine potential relationships between the sequential associations, child age, and language scores. Results indicated modeling gestures with a short phrase increased the momentary likelihood of infant gestures overall and points specifically, whereas modeling short phrases without gestures decreased the momentary likelihood of any infant gesture.