Infancy最新文献

Positive social bidding refers to moments when infants look at an unresponsive caregiver and try to re-engage the social partner via smiling and/or vocalizing. Prior to six months of age, there is considerable variability in the extent to which infants engage in positive social bidding. In this study we explore whether infants' and mothers' cardiac vagal tone is associated with these individual differences. Mothers and their 4- to 6-month-old infants (n = 132) participated in the Face-to-Face Still-Face Paradigm (FFSF); social behaviors and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were recorded on a moment-to-moment basis. More frequent vocal bidding during the Still-Face episode was related to infants' and mothers' physiological synchrony, as well as lower levels of infants' negative affect and higher levels of infants' RSA during face-to-face Social Play. Also, infants demonstrating more vocal bidding exhibited greater increases in RSA at the beginning and end of the Reunion phase following the Still-Face stressor. Critically, the relation between infants' physiological regulation and vocal bidding differed as a function of the FFSF episode in which RSA was measured. The implications of adopting a biobehavioral perspective on the development of positive social bidding are discussed.

Caregivers across many cultures modify their speech when interacting with infants or young children. This type of speech, commonly known as “parentese”, is characterized by greater pitch variations, longer duration, and louder volume compared to speech directed to adults. Parentese has been found to facilitate language learning. It has been proposed that parentese may benefit early language development because its exaggerated prosody encourages infants to interact with caregivers. We tested this hypothesis by investigating if parentese temporally elicits infant speech-like vocalization in typically developing (TD) and in autistic infants using sequential analysis. We compared caregiver-child vocal contingencies coded from 847 days-long recordings of 103 TD infants and 44 infants with a confirmed diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at 3 years. Findings revealed that infants were more likely to produce a speech-like vocalization following an adult utterance directed to them in parentese compared to an adult utterance directed to them in adult register. Additionally, the strength of the sequential association between parentese or adult register and infant speech-like vocalization did not differ across diagnostic groups. These findings support the notion that parentese may facilitate language learning via encouraging infants to respond and interact with their conversation partner.

Cross-cultural research on maternal mind-mindedness- the proclivity to view the child as a mental agent-can enhance our understanding of caregiving determinants and children's social-cognitive variations across cultures. However, cross-cultural studies on mind-mindedness remain limited. To address this gap, we examined mothers' use of appropriate (AMRCs) and non-attuned (NAMRCs) mind-related comments in Italy (N = 88), Germany (N = 64), and the Netherlands (N = 97) with their 12-month-old infants (N = 249; 133 girls and 116 boys). Cluster analysis revealed three maternal profiles: low use of both AMRCs and NAMRCs, high use of both AMRCs and NAMRCs, and high AMRCs with low NAMRCs. Almost half of the German mothers belonged to the first profile, most Italian mothers to the second, and Dutch mothers were equally distributed across the three. These findings highlight, for the first time, cultural influences on maternal mind-mindedness within Western countries and emphasize the need to move beyond a simplistic West-East comparison, recognizing that cultural differences can be observed even within similar contexts, and call for culturally sensitive psychoeducational interventions to enhance caregivers' mentalizing skills.

This study investigated motor and language development among infants and toddlers staying in family homeless shelters. We tested contributors to resilience and maladaptation, while also considering characteristics of developmental screening. Participants were 128 children (2-week to 35 months old; M = 8.54 months; 73% Black/African American) and their parents staying in eight urban family shelters. Data spanned time points about 2 months apart, involving an interview, parent-child play task, and a repeated, standardized observational screening measure. On average, this sample showed motor delays relative to age-based norms, and language delays for toddlers but not infants, a finding that may signal challenges in assessing language in young infants. Parent depression symptoms predicted lower gains in language, and parent education predicted higher gains in language. Positive parenting predicted gains in motor scores and a non-significant trend for language. We interpreted results as evidence of complex developmental processes of resilience and risk. Parent functioning is a key predictor of resilience and should be included in developmental screening of very young children who experience adversity. Shelter design, policy, and practices also should reflect consideration of early childhood development and parent empowerment.

This study examined the trajectories of copy behaviors during the first year of life in a group of infants at elevated likelihood for autism (EL) and a group with a typical likelihood for developing autism (TL). It also explored the function of these behaviors in interaction situations, and the correlations between imitated behaviors and language. To this end, a task was designed to elicit mimetic and imitative behaviors, the Traberitea Infant Mimicry and Imitation Task. The results revealed distinct trajectories for mimetic and imitated behaviors, with no significant differences between the two groups. The most prevalent function observed in both groups was the instrumental function; however, an interaction effect was observed in the social function. At 12 months, the mean frequency of the social function was lower in the EL group than in the TL group, though with a small effect size. There were primarily correlations with expressive language in the EL group for both imitation with social function and with instrumental function. These findings are discussed from a perspective that looks toward protective factors and resilience (Elsabbagh 2020), and future implications are suggested regarding the implementation of preemptive enrichment programs for development.

Toddler visual attention development correlates with subsequent language, cognitive, and social developmental outcomes. This study investigates the association of maternal trauma on toddler looking behaviors in 39 mother-child dyads from the Western Cape Province, South Africa. At 15 months postpartum, maternal trauma was assessed using the Life Events Checklist and toddler multisensory attention skills were measured using the Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP) during eye-tracking. We used two-way mixed ANOVA to analyze the association of maternal trauma and MAAP condition with attention maintenance, intersensory matching, and attention shifting. This study provides support for the MAAP's reliability with a sample of 15-month-old toddlers from a low-income setting. We observed a significant interaction between MAAP condition and maternal trauma group on attention maintenance, but pairwise comparisons did not meet the threshold for statistical significance. In a stratified analysis, toddlers of mothers in the low trauma exposure group demonstrated significant differences in attention maintenance, intersensory matching, and attention shifting by condition. Unexpectedly, toddlers of mothers in the high trauma exposure group did not exhibit significant differences in these attentional skills, potentially indicating attentional adaptations. Further research is needed to explore the relationship between the intergenerational transmission of trauma on infant and toddler multisensory attention skills in low-income settings.

Cultural contexts shape numerous child development outcomes and may be particularly salient for dual language learning children who experience heritage and societal cultures. Previous research suggests that caregivers' cultural orientation is associated with the language their child is exposed to and knows. However, less is known about how caregiver cultural orientation is linked with early child-directed speech and child language knowledge in immigrant households. In a sample of primarily Spanish-speaking, Mexican immigrant mothers and their child (N = 112; 58.9% female) from low-income households, this study examined the links between maternal Mexican and Anglo cultural orientation at child age 9 months, maternal Spanish and English child-directed speech (measured via mother-child free-play) at 2 years, and children's Spanish and English vocabulary knowledge at 3 years. A path model revealed that maternal Anglo orientation predicted children's English vocabulary through English child-directed speech. Although Spanish child-directed speech predicted Spanish vocabulary, maternal Mexican orientation did not predict Spanish child-directed speech or Spanish vocabulary scores. The findings implicate acculturation and societal- and heritage-language child-directed speech as important features to consider when assessing children of immigrants' language environments and learning, making salient the role of cultural contexts on childhood bilingualism.

Prior research has demonstrated that infants have the capacity to recognize some familiar words. However, past studies have not analyzed the sociodemographic generalizability of research findings. In the current study, we examine word recognition in a linguistically, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse community sample. A community sample of Singaporean infants from diverse socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds between 5 and 12 months of age were tested on their ability to recognize common nouns in a looking-while-listening task. Results revealed that parental socioeconomic status, the amount of exposure to English, and infants’ age significantly predicted their word recognition performance. A subsequent sensitivity analysis revealed that the effects of SES and age on word recognition were robust. The results demonstrate that socioeconomic status contributes significantly to variation in infants’ abilities to recognize familiar words. Findings emphasize the importance of integrating and analyzing effects of sociodemographic representation into studies on infant word learning.