Mothers' attachment representations and choice of infant care: center care vs. home

In the debate concerning the effects of day care on infant development, insufficient attention has been paid to the potential relationship between pre‐existing emotional differences among mothers and the type of care they choose for their infants. To shed light on this issue, this study examines the attachment representations of mothers who choose day‐care centres as opposed to mothers who choose to remain at home with their infants. Participants were 76 primiparous mothers. Mothers' attachment classifications were assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview [AAI; Main M, Kaplan N, Cassidy J. 1985. Security in infancy, childhood, and adulthood: a move to the level of representation. In Growing Points of Attachment Theory and Research. Monograph of the Society for Research in Child Development, 50, (1–2, serial no. 209), Bretherton I, Waters E (eds); 66–104]. Results indicate that more Day‐care than Home‐Care mothers are classified as insecurely attached. These results highlight the contribution of maternal emotional characteristics to the effects of diverse child care arrangements on infant development. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The infant ‘motoric’ dream: where mothers' eye and scientist meet

One hundred twenty women were asked about their ideas on infants' dream. Two interviews were undertaken, before birth and 1 month after birth. The majority of women (both before and after birth) responded that infants dream. The reasons why they attributed dreaming to infants changed from before birth to after birth. At one month, these reasons were based on infant movements and behaviours, factors also taken into consideration by sleep researchers. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Genetic and environmental influences on aggression in 4- to 7-year-old twins

Aggressive behaviors of 38 twin pairs (21 monozygotic [MZ], 17 dizygotic [DZ]) between the ages of 4 and 7 years were assessed through mothers' ratings and observations in their homes. An observation checklist was developed in which mothers were asked to observe and report each child's specific aggressive behaviors for a total of 6 hours spread over 3 days. In particular the observations focused on the following behaviors: rejection, destructiveness, negativism, noncompliance, teasing, physical negative, insult, verbal threat, and yelling. Biometrical genetic analysis evidenced significant heritable influences on composite aggression scores in both the observation checklist and the mothers' ratings; heritability estimates varied from.24 to.94 depending on the aggression nieasnre used, with scores from the mothers' observations demonstrating smaller genetic effect than those of the parental ratings of the environmental sources of variance, within-family factors were far more important than the between-family ones. The results also yielded significant sex and zygosity differences for means of some of the specific aggressive behaviors, where males and DZ twins scored higher than females and MZ twins. It was suggested that future studies should include more detailed investigations of the context in which specific aggressive behaviors occur and the sources toward which they are directed in order to determine the extent to which different types of aggression may have different etiologies.     

A comparison of fathers' and mothers' contributions in the prediction of academic performance of school-age children in Hong Kong

Asystematic study of the linkages between gender issues and parenting is made among Chinese families. This study examines sex differences in parenting attributes across fathers and mothers and towards sons and daughters, and compares the contributions of fathers and mothers to the prediction of academic performance across boys and girls. Four parenting attributes are included: nurturance, psychological control, parental involvement in education, and parental academic efficacy. Data were collected from 461 Chinese father-mother-child triads of children studying Grade 3 to 5 in Hong Kong. Findings of this study, based on multivariate analysis of variance, showed that parental roles followed traditional Chinese cultural expectations. Compared to the fathers, Chinese mothers of school-age children in Hong Kong were more loving and caring, more involved in children's education, and more efficacious in promoting children's academic performance. Results of hierarchical regression analysis examining the role of child's sex as a moderator showed cross-sex influence in parental contribution to academic performance with respect to parental psychological control and academic efficacy. Specifically, boys benefited more from maternal efficacy than girls did and they were also more hampered by mothers with high psychological control, while girls' academic performance was more enhanced by paternal academic efficacy than boys. A gender-balance approach that highlights the significance of gender in moderating parental contributions to academic performance was thus supported. Future research should continue to focus on psychological control and domain-specific parental attributes as potential sources of gender-linked parent-child associations. Investigations should also explore other cognitive and noncognitive domains of child outcome, different child age groups, as well as Chinese populations in various geographical regions.     

Precision Commands and the ”Sure I Will” Program:

No abstract available for this article.     

Intergenerational predictors of diurnal cortisol secretion in early childhood

The present study examined potential intergenerational links that may contribute to atypical patterns of diurnal cortisol secretion in early childhood. Salivary cortisol samples were collected across 1 waking day in 36 pre‐school children whose mothers are participants in an ongoing longitudinal project. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) identified statistically significant predictors of individual differences in daily cortisol trajectories. Children displayed relatively low post‐awakening values and flatter cortisol trajectories across the day as a function of unsupportive maternal behaviour, second‐hand smoke and maternal histories of social withdrawal in childhood. These results suggest that individual differences in young children's pattern of diurnal cortisol are associated with a variety of current and historical maternal characteristics and behaviours. The identification of intergenerational predictors of children's diurnal neuroendocrine functioning may provide new insights into the transfer of health and developmental risk from parent to child. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of Japanese mothers' styles of emotional expression on thirteen-month-old infants' reactions to a stranger

The present study investigated the hypothesized influence of mothers' styles of emotional expression on infants' responses to the stranger in Episode 3, the Ainsworth Strange Situation. One hundred and thirty-five mothers volunteered for this experiment with their 13-month-olds. The mothers' answers on an expression style questionnaire (EESQ) were factor analysed. According to their mothers' factor scores, infants were divided into four groups, those having (a) expressive type mothers (N = 40), (b) suppressive type mothers (N = 39), (c) positive expressive type mothers (N = 31), and (d) negative expressive type mothers (N = 25). The infants' behaviours were analysed in 5-sec intervals. The infants having expressive type mothers showed a strong interest in the stranger and interacted with her willingly. The infants having suppressive type mothers exhibited less smiling and much freezing behaviour. The infants having positive expressive type mothers reacted with more smiling, much bodily contact behaviour with the mother and less crying. The infants having negative expressive type mothers showed more often crying and frequent head orientation towards the stranger.     

Infant Developmental Outcomes: A Family Systems Perspective

The aim of the current study was to examine whether parental mental health, parent–infant relationship, infant characteristics and couple's relationship factors were associated with the infant's development. Forty‐two families took part at three time points. The first, at 3 months postpartum, involved a video recorded observation (CARE‐index) of parent–infant interactions. At 5 months postpartum, in‐depth clinical interviews (the Birmingham Interview of Maternal Mental Health) assessed parental mental health and parental perceptions of their relationship with their infant, their partner and their infant's characteristics. Finally, the Bayley Scales III was carried out 17 months postpartum to assess the infants' cognitive, language and motor development. A higher mother–infant relationship quality was significantly associated with more optimal language development, whilst a higher father–infant relationship quality was associated with more advanced motor development. Additionally, maternal postnatal post‐traumatic stress disorder had a negative impact on the infant's cognitive development, whilst maternal prenatal depression was associated with a less optimal infant's language development. The largest prediction was afforded by parental perceptions of their infant's characteristics. The findings indicate that such perceptions may be crucial for the infant's development and imply that negative internal parental perceptions should be considered when assessing risk factors or designing interventions to prevent negative child outcomes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parents' perceptions of the quality of infant sleep behaviours and practices: A qualitative systematic review

A systematic review of qualitative studies was conducted to explore how parents perceive sleep quality in their infants aged 0–24 months and the factors that influence these perceptions. A systematic search of the databases Scopus, Embase, Cinahl, PsycInfo and MEDLINE, was undertaken to identify eligible peer-reviewed studies published between 2006–2021. Ten papers met inclusion criteria and were subsequently included in the review. Evaluation of papers with the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme qualitative checklist classified papers as weak, moderate or strong, with half considered strong. Thematic synthesis identified one superordinate theme, culture, and five interrelated subordinate themes regarding how parents perceive their infant's sleep and the factors that may influence these perceptions. These themes were: (1) Infants physical and emotional comfort; (2) Beliefs regarding safety; (3) Parental and familial wellbeing; (4) Perceived degree of infant agency; (5) Influence of external beliefs and opinions. The findings from this review may assist practitioners in providing parents with personalized and culturally sensitive information regarding infant sleep and may also inform antenatal and early intervention practices, subsequently minimizing parental distress regarding infant sleep patterns.     

The Michigan infant mental health home visiting model

Selma Fraiberg's pioneering work with infants, toddlers, and families over 40 years ago led to the development of a field in which professionals from multiple disciplines learned to work with or on behalf of infants, very young children, their parents, and the relationships that bind them together. The intent was to promote social and emotional health through enhancing the security of early developing parent–child relationships in the first years of life (Fraiberg, 2018). Called infant mental health (IMH), practitioners from fields of health, education, social work, psychology, human development, nursing, pediatrics, and psychiatry specialize in supporting the optimal development of infants and the developing relationship between infants and their caregivers. When a baby is born into optimal circumstances, to parents free of undue economic and psychological stressors and who are emotionally ready to provide care and nurturing for an infant's needs, an IMH approach may be offered as promotion or prevention, with the goal of supporting new parent(s) in developing confidence in their capacity to understand and meet the needs of the tiny human they are coming to know and care for. However, when parental history is fraught with abandonment, loss, abuse or neglect, or the current environment is replete with economic insecurity, threats to survival due to interpersonal or community violence, social isolation, mental illness, or substance abuse, the work of the IMH therapist may require intervention or intensive treatment and becomes more psychotherapeutic in nature. The underlying therapeutic goal is to create a context in which the baby develops within the environment of a parent's nurturing care without the psychological impingement that parental history of trauma or loss or current stressors such as isolation, poverty, or the birth of a child with special needs, can incur.     

Arrows of time in infancy: the representation of temporal-causal invariances

Many transformations that take place over time can only occur in one temporal direction, and adults are highly sensitive to the differences between forward and backward presentations of such events. In seven experiments using two selective-looking paradigms, 4- and 8-month-olds were shown forward and backward videotapes of events involving the effects of gravity on liquids and solid objects and of the separation of whole objects into pieces. Four-month-olds showed a significant preference for the forward version of liquid pouring from a beaker to a glass. Eight-month-olds looked longer at the forward versions of this and four other gravity-related events but showed no directional preferences for the separation events. Several experiments indicate that longer looking at the forward versions of the gravity stimuli is not a product of attraction to specific perceptual features of the stimuli. A model based on the development of representations of types of events is presented and evaluated.     

The rooting reflex as an infant feeding cue

Experts in infant health and development consider the rooting reflex a cue of a baby's hunger and recommend feeding the infant when this reflex occurs. However, the relation between rooting and infant feeding status has not been well established in the literature. In the current study, seven parents documented the occurrence of their newborns' rooting, crying, and a control reflex (palmar grasp) before, after, and between naturally occurring feedings. For all participants, rooting occurred during a greater percentage of reflex checks prior to feedings, whereas the palmar grasp occurred during a similar percentage of checks across these time periods. These results provide empirical support for the rooting reflex as a feeding cue. However, data for only one dyad suggested a high probability of the rooting reflex occurring without crying during prefeeding checks. Thus, our data do not provide evidence that feeding in response to the rooting reflex would preempt infant crying.     

Sex Differences in Mothers' Speech and Play Behavior with 6-, 9-, and 14-Month-Old Infants

In this study, we analyzed mothers' speech and play behavior with their 6-, 9-, and 14-month-old sons and daughters. Thirty-six infant–mother dyads participated in a 10-min free-play session with gender-neutral toys. No sex differences were found in the infants' behavior, but sex differences were found in mothers' verbal behavior and level of engagement. Mothers of daughters made more interpretations and engaged in more conversation with their daughters, whereas mothers of sons made more comments and attentionals, which were typified by instructions rather than conversation. Furthermore, mothers interacted more with their daughters than with their sons across all ages. Overall, these results demonstrate that mothers transmit different messages to their male and female infants, both through language and interaction, which may contribute to infants' gender role development.     

Infant placement and language exposure in daily life

Children's daily contexts shape their experiences. In this study, we assessed whether variations in infant placement (e.g., held, bouncy seat) are associated with infants' exposure to adult speech. Using repeated survey sampling of mothers and continuous audio recordings, we tested whether the use of independence-supporting placements was associated with adult speech exposure in a Southeastern U.S. sample of 60 4- to 6-month-old infants (38% male, predominately White, not Hispanic/Latinx, from higher socioeconomic status households). Within-subject analyses indicated that independence-supporting placements were associated with exposure to fewer adult words in the moment. Between-subjects analyses indicated that infants more frequently reported to be in independence-supporting placements that also provided posture support (i.e., an exersaucer) were exposed to relatively fewer adult words and less consistent adult speech across the day. These findings indicate that infants' opportunities for exposure to adult speech ‘in the wild’ may vary based on immediate physical context.     

Infants’ coding of location in continuous space

The ability to code location in continuous space is fundamental to spatial behavior. Existing evidence indicates a robust ability for such coding by 12 months, but systematic evidence on earlier origins is lacking. A series of studies investigated 5-month-olds’ ability to code the location of an object hidden in a sandbox, using a looking-time paradigm. In Experiment 1, after familiarization with a hiding-and-finding sequence at one location, infants looked longer at an object being disclosed from a location 12 inches (30 cm) away than at an object emerging from the hiding location, showing they were able to code location in continuous space. In Experiment 2, infants reacted with greater looking when objects emerged from locations 8 inches (20 cm) away from the hiding location, showing that location coding was more finely grained than could be inferred based on the first study. In Experiment 3, infants were familiarized with an object shown in hiding-and-finding sequences at two different locations. Infants looked longer at objects emerging 12 inches (30 cm) away from the most recent hiding location than to emergence from the other location, showing that infants could code location even when events had previously occurred at each location. In Experiment 4, after familiarization with two objects with different shapes, colors, and sounding characteristics, shown in hiding-and-finding sequences in two locations, infants reacted to location violations as they had in Experiment 3. However, they did not react to object violations, that is, events in which the wrong object emerged from a hiding location. Experiment 5 also found no effect of object violation, even when the infants initially saw the two objects side by side. Spatiotemporal characteristics may play a more central role in early object individuation than they do later, although further study is required.     

The Development of Infants' Spatial Categories

ABSTRACT— Early theories of how infants develop spatial concepts focused on the perceptual and cognitive abilities that contribute to this ability. More recent research, however, has centered on whether experience with spatial language might also play a role. The present article reviews how infants learn to form spatial categories, outlining the perceptual and cognitive abilities that drive this learning, and examines the role played by spatial language. I argue that infants' spatial concepts initially are the result of nonlinguistic perceptual and cognitive abilities, but that, as infants build a spatial lexicon, spatial language becomes an important tool in the spatial categories infants learn to form.     

Infant temperament and performance on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development at 4, 8, and 12 months of age

Infants were assessed with the Rothbart Infant Behavior Questionnaire (an objective measure of infant temperament based on maternal reports) and the complete Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) at 4, 8, and 12 months of age. Activity level was related to BSID performance at each age with babies who obtained higher scores rated as more active. Activity level was also related to the infants' behavior during the test administration at 8 and 12 months. A negative relation was found between smiling and laughter and the mental development index at 8 and 12 months. These data suggest that aspects of infant temperament as assessed by maternal report share a small amount of variance with BSID performance and the amount of shared variance increases with age.