Noticing and commenting on what’s new: differences and similarities among 22‐month‐old typically developing children,children with Down syndrome and children with autism

Twenty 22‐month‐old typically developing children (TD), 11 children with Down syndrome (DS) and 10 children with autism (A), all functioning at a one‐ or two‐word linguistic level, were given eight series of four toys to explore. In each series, the first three toys (i.e. Trials 1–3) were identical, but the fourth toy (i.e. Trial 4) differed on a property or in identity. The children sat beside their mother and the experimenter while exploring the toys. Of interest was whether (1) the TD children would show more exploratory and communicative behavior related to the toys on Trials 1 and 4 than 2 and 3, and (2) how the response patterns of nontypically developing children would compare. The DS group showed a pattern of responding similar to that of the TD group with respect to their attention and interest in the toys, although a much lower rate of communicating with their mother. In contrast, the A group differed significantly from both other groups with respect to both the toys they found of interest and the timing of their topic initiations. Implications for observing declarative communication among children with Down syndrome and children with autism are discussed.     

The effect of Velten's mood-induction procedure for depression on hand movement and head-down posture

The purpose of the present study was to extend the behavioral criteria of Velten's mood-induction procedure for depression. Nonverbal behaviors (hand movements and head-down position) associated with clinical depression were measured both before and after a subject read either negative self-referential statements (N=14) or neutral statements (N=12). The measures were unobtrusively obtained by video recordings of the subject's behavior during a standardized interview with an experimenter. The reading of negative self-referential statements led to a significant decrease in the use of hand illustrators and a marginal increase in the use of head-down postures. No significant changes occurred in the control group. The results support the notion that Velten's procedure for depression does alter behavior in a manner similar to the clinical state of depression.This study was conducted as a senior research project at Franklin & Marshall College by the second author under the supervision of the first author.     

Fourteen-month-olds know what others experience only in joint engagement

We investigated how 14‐month‐old infants know what others know. In two studies, an infant played with each of two objects in turn while an experimenter was present. Then the experimenter left the room, and the infant played with a third object with an assistant. The experimenter returned, faced all three objects, and said excitedly ‘Look! Can you give it to me?’ In Study 1, the experimenter experienced each of the first two toys in episodes of joint visual engagement (without manipulation) with the infant. In response to her excited request infants gave the experimenter the object she did not know, thus demonstrating that they knew which ones she knew. In Study 2, infants witnessed the experimenter jointly engage around each of the experienced toys with the assistant, from a third‐person perspective. In response to her request, infants did not give the experimenter the object she had not experienced. In combination with other studies, these results suggest that to know what others have experienced 14‐month‐old infants must do more than just perceive others perceiving something; they must engage with them actively in joint engagement.     

Collateral Effects from Teaching Attention,Imitation and Toy Interaction Behaviors to a Developmentally Handicapped Child

A 3 year 4 month old girl with developmental handicaps was initially taught attention and imitation on request and then, within a multiple baseline across behaviors design, responding to experimenter direction to manipulate eight toys. Training with sex of these toys was successfully taken over by preschool staff while interaction with three different toys was achieved with the child's mother at home. Across 23 weeks of the study 10 non-targeted behaviors were observed in the preschool dayroom setting, and showed that from the time the first intervention commenced the child markedly decreased self-stimulation and self-injury and substantially increased attending to persons and objects. These changes were seen as collateral effects of the intervention programme, and the importance of evaluating such effects suggested.     

Do as I do: 7-month-old infants selectively reproduce others' goals

In the current study, we tested whether 7-month-old infants would selectively imitate the goal-relevant aspects of an observed action. Infants saw an experimenter perform an action on one of two small toys and then were given the opportunity to act on the toys. Infants viewed actions that were either goal-directed or goal-ambiguous, and that represented either completed or uncompleted goals. Infants reproduced the goal of the experimenter only in those cases where the action was goal-directed, in both the complete and incomplete goal conditions. These results provide the first evidence that infants as young as 7 months of age selectively imitate actions based on their goal-directedness, and that they are able to analyze the goals of even uncompleted actions. Even during the first year of life, infants' sensitivity to goal-directed action is expressed not only in their responses in visual habituation procedures, but also in their overt actions.     

Blocking the incorrect alley in a two-drive learning situation

This experiment was designed to test the effect of blocking the path to an irrelevant reward on the subject's later performance when motivated for that reward, with a view to clarifying a well-known problem-situation.

An experimental group of 17 hooded rats was run in a two-choice maze, with food in one goal-box and water in the other, being motivated alternately for one or the other. The wrong goal-box was always blocked. Their performance on the first trial of the daily series was significantly poorer than that of a control group of 18 hooded rats, for which both boxes were always open. This difference persisted when, in a second period of training, the rhythm of motivation was altered for both groups.

It is concluded that blocking an irrelevant reward can have a disturbing effect and that this may be relevant to the problem-situation. It is also shown that such a result is to be predicted from Deutsch's (1953, 1956) theory.