Developmental Science最新文献

Recent studies have indicated that patterns of infant-caregiver attachment are associated with differences in infants’ processing of social signals of emotion, such as facial expressions. In the current longitudinal study we extended this line of research to social signals of actual attachment figures by investigating whether 7-month-old infants’ neural and attentional responses to their mother's angry and happy facial expressions are associated with infants’ attachment security to the mother at 12 months of age. At 7 months (n = 88), we measured event-related potentials (ERP) to the mother's angry and happy faces and attention dwell times to the mother's and a stranger's angry and happy faces, and maternal sensitivity was assessed during free play. At 12 months (n = 69), infant attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation procedure. In infants who were later classified as having secure attachment, the Nc ERP component indexing attention allocation was larger to maternal happy than angry expressions, whereas no difference in Nc amplitudes to maternal facial expressions was observed in infants with later insecure attachment. We speculate that this may indicate greater approach motivation triggered by the reward value of happy faces in securely attached infants through repeated experiences of positive interaction with the caregiver.

Summary

This study investigated developmental pathways between early language and later social skills in a large, prospective cohort consisting of 3387 mother-child dyads. Mediational pathways were examined between parent-reported expressive language (at 2 years of age) and social skills (at 8 years of age), via core language and pragmatic language (at 5 years of age). The analyses accounted for biological and environmental factors known to be associated with language development (i.e., child sex at birth, child birthweight, family income, mother's level of education, primary language spoken in the home, and perinatal health factors). Results indicated that pragmatic language, but not core language, acted as a significant partial mediator in the pathway of interest. These results support a developmental chain from early expressive language in toddlerhood to subsequent social skills in middle childhood via pragmatic language skills around school entry. Implications for theory and practice, and limitations are reviewed.

Summary

Children with poor reading comprehension tend to have oral language weaknesses, suggesting that poor language in the early years is a proximal cause of later reading comprehension difficulties. Yet, longitudinal studies have not succeeded in reliably predicting which children go on to have comprehension weaknesses (CW), and evidence comprises small sample sizes and a narrow focus on language in isolation. In this registered report, we examined early predictors of later outcomes in 879 children with CW identified at 9 years in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Study 1 showed that these children had poorer language at 24 and 38 months (but not 15 months) than peers who did not go on to develop reading difficulties (n = 4516). However, preschool language ability was a poor predictor of individual outcomes, which was not improved by accounting for the language and communication environment. Study 2 used a multiple risk approach to ask whether breadth (number) or depth (severity) of risk factors predicted reading outcomes in a subsample of 125 children with CW and 561 typically developing readers. Having three or more risk factors increases the risk for later CW. Language was the most consistent predictor of group membership, but the depth of cognitive risks beyond language was associated with the severity of reading impairment. However, neither the breadth nor the depth of risks could adequately predict individual outcomes. These findings align with a multiple risk view of reading CW and highlight the challenges in early identification.

Summary

Results from a number of studies of human empathy are interpreted as demonstrating that young infants exhibit concern towards others who are suffering. Studies of empathy in young infants, however, often confound interest in intensity and ecologically valid stimuli with concern about others’ suffering. Using a perceptually controlled design with ecologically valid stimuli, we investigated whether very young human infants preferentially look at a peer in distress. We showed 78 3–6-month-old infants videos of four babies who were crying and cooing along with synthetically generated control videos of the same babies that preserved their perceptual features. Results showed that infants overwhelmingly looked longer at babies who were crying versus cooing, with the same relative difference observed for crying versus cooing controls, although infants found real babies more interesting than controls. Results suggest that infants’ attention to differences in emotional valence related to empathy cannot be clearly interpreted without controlling for associated perceptual differences.

Summary

A substantial body of research has demonstrated that human and nonhuman animals have perceptually-based abilities to process magnitudes of nonsymbolic ratios (e.g., ratios composed by juxtaposing two-line segments). In prior work, we have extended the neuronal recycling hypothesis to include neurocognitive architectures for nonsymbolic ratio processing, proposing that these systems might support symbolic fractions acquisition. We tested two key propositions: (1) children should show neural sensitivity to nonsymbolic fractions before receiving formal fractions instruction, and (2) they should leverage this foundation by recruiting neural architectures for nonsymbolic fractions processing for symbolic fractions. We compared nonsymbolic and symbolic fractions processing among 2nd-graders (n = 28, ages 7.5–8.8), who had not yet received formal symbolic fractions instruction, and 5th-graders (n = 33, ages 10.3–11.9), who had. During fMRI scanning, children performed ratio comparison tasks, determining which of two nonsymbolic or symbolic fractions was larger. Both cohorts showed behavioral and neural evidence of processing nonsymbolic and symbolic fractions magnitudes, with performance modulated by numerical distance between stimuli. Consistent with our predictions, 2nd-graders recruited a right parietal-frontal network for nonsymbolic fractions but not for symbolic fractions, whereas 5th-graders recruited a bilateral parietal-frontal network for both, overlapping with but extending beyond that of 2nd-graders. Furthermore, nonsymbolic-symbolic neural similarity in the intraparietal sulcus was greater for 5th-graders than for 2nd-graders. These results present the first developmental neuroimaging evidence that neural substrates for nonsymbolic ratios exist before formal learning, which may be recycled to process symbolic fractions.

Summary