Infancy最新文献

Research on the COVID-19 pandemic's effect on infant emotional development has produced mixed results, often limited by methodological constraints, such as not having access to data prior to and after pandemic onset. This study helps overcome these limitations by analyzing data from 330 infants (51% female; 54% White, non-Hispanic) across five points in the first 2 years of life, from October 2016 to August 2021. Multilevel growth models indicated that negative affect decreased following pandemic onset, contrary to the expected and observed increase in negative affect prior to the pandemic. Higher levels of contextual risk (maternal trait anxiety, neighborhood disadvantage) were associated with higher levels of infant negative affect, irrespective of the pandemic. These findings further our understanding of the pandemic's impact on child development.

Studies show children in low-income households have heightened risk of developing as late talkers (LTs). Scholars have attributed the cause of these differences to variability in child-directed and observed language input, parenting quality, attendance at childcare facilities, or some combination therein, as briefly reviewed. However, this study focuses on a sample entirely of families experiencing low income to explore differences within this group. This study explores growth trajectories for child vocabulary production from age 8-30 months in a racially-diverse low-income longitudinal sample in the U.S. (n = 199). Using multi-level multiple group models, we explore differences in growth trajectories for LTs and non-LT peers (identified: age 22-30 months) and identify the age at which vocabulary sizes begin to significantly differ, controlling for the effects of child age-at-test, sex, primary home language, and mother's education. Results show distinctly different trajectories, such that: (1) LTs experience relatively flat growth resulting in significantly smaller vocabulary sizes over time and (2) divergence occurs at ∼11 months. Future research is needed to fully understand how and why LT trajectories begin to differ so significantly at this age, and how we can better intervene earlier to reduce the likelihood of LT.

The purpose of this study is to expand understanding of the early stages of the lifespan model of ethnic-racial identity by summarizing and mapping existing research on the development of ethnic-racial awareness among children from birth to age 3. A scoping review methodology is used to systematically identify and analyze the existing literature on early ethnic-racial awareness and developmental influences on this awareness among infants and toddlers. The final analysis included 168 unique studies within 105 papers published between January 1990 and March 2023. Findings confirm that infants and toddlers demonstrate a capacity for ethnic-racial awareness, including phenotypic appearance and language of those similar and different from their own. Findings also demonstrate the need for more research on individual differences in the development of ethnic-racial awareness, and the influences that account for variation in order to further understand how ethnic-racial awareness emerges and evolves during the racial-priming period. Published research on ethnic-racial awareness among children under 3 years of age primarily includes looking time studies with disproportionate samples of White infants. Findings also indicate an absence of studies examining early ethnic-racial socialization practices and anti-bias interventions among caregivers of infants and toddlers. Implications for future research are discussed.

Previous research suggests that early word recognition is an important foundation for subsequent vocabulary development. However, the optimal method for assessing this ability in infancy remains unclear. To investigate this issue, we collected data from 70 participants (45.7% female) at 10, 11.5, 18 and 24 months of age using two eye-tracking based tasks—the preferential looking- and mismatch paradigms—as well as parental reports on a short form of the Swedish Early Communicative Development Inventories (SE-CDI). Both eye-tracking-based paradigms correlated with concurrent and later vocabulary scores. However, while the preferential looking paradigm showed stability across time, the mismatch paradigm did not demonstrate longitudinal stability and its associations with vocabulary were sometimes in unexpected directions. These findings suggest that the mismatch paradigm may reflect shifting cognitive or attentional processes during development, highlighting the need for further investigation. In contrast, the eye-tracking based preferential looking paradigm, may offer an objective complement to parental reports for predicting subsequent vocabulary development in early childhood.

Grasping is a fundamental skill that enables people to interface with and explore objects around them. The emergence of precision (thumb-to-forefinger) grasping during infancy represents a developmental shift in this skill and has been linked to more advanced action perception, particularly in detecting action incongruencies. In this study, ERPs known to be elicited in response to action were studied in 9- and 11.5-month-old infants as they watched whole-hand and precision grasping actions congruent or incongruent with a target object. Components related to attentional (Nc, P400) and semantic (N400) processes were examined to determine whether infants' perception of grasp is based on attention and recognition, on higher-level representations of action, or a mix of these two levels of processing. Effects of congruence were found for the P400 and the N400. The P400 effect was greater among the older age group. Infants' ability to produce a precision grip did not significantly affect their ERPs in response to actors' incongruent versus congruent grasps, which would have been expected if recognition of incongruous grasping actions were based on motor experience. Results indicate that infant ERPs differ between grasps that are congruent or incongruent with the form of a target object via multiple cognitive processes.