Relation of maternal responsiveness during infancy to the development of behavior problems in high-risk youths

Although problematic parenting has been consistently associated with behavior problems in youths, prospective links between early parenting and childhood behavior problems are less well established. This study examined the association of maternal responsiveness (MRes) during infancy and behavior problems in middle childhood (N = 77). MRes was significantly associated with disruptive behavior problems but was unrelated to attention problems. Absence of MRes during infancy increased the risk of disruptive behavior problems in middle childhood, even with concurrent parenting and established risk factors for disruptive behavior controlled. MRes also interacted with concurrent family risk to predict disruptive behavior symptoms. These findings underscore the importance of early parenting for developmental pathways to disruptive behavior disorders in high-risk youths. The identification of a relatively modifiable early risk factor for disruptive behavior problems has important implications for prevention.     

Effect of early environmental restriction on subsequent behavior in the rat

The Psychological Record - Three groups of rats were raised in (a) unrestricted, (b) community cage, and (c) isolated environments respectively. The community and isolated cages were barren while...     

Externality in the nonobese: effects of environmental responsiveness on weight.

The study considered whether external responsiveness in normal weight people would predict changes in eating behavior and weight following major alteration of environmetnal food cues. Normal weight children were tested for externality on measures of eating, slide recall, and extremity of affective responsiveness during the first week of a summer camp, and were weighed biweekly thereafter. There was a significant correlation between externality and weight change, indicating that the more externally responsive the children were, the more weight they gained. The implications of this finding for theories about the development of obesity were considered.     

Neurobehavioral reorganization in early infancy: Patterns of head orientation following lateral and midline holds

Head orientation was investigated in a longitudinal study of 37 infants, who were observed at ages 2, 4, 8, and 12 weeks, during a 60-second period that followed each of four (60 second) midline or lateral holds. When newborn, the infants tended to lie with their heads to the right, but this bias weakened over the first 3 postnatal months. This rightward motor bias was constrained further by such factors as sex and holding position; both factors had their strongest effect at 8 weeks. Finally, evidence was found for behavioral reorganization of postural orientation such that head orientation was less influenced by prior head positioning after than prior to 8 weeks.     

Patterns of substance use in early through late adolescence

This study examined patterns of substance use throughout adolescence. A cluster analytic approach was used to identify subgroups of adolescents on the basis of their levels of substance use from early through late adolescence (Grades 6 through 11). Six distinct clusters of substance users emerged—2 groups representing relatively stable patterns of substance use from early through late adolescence (i.e., nonusers and alcohol experimenters), and 4 groups of users showing escalating patterns of substance use (i.e., low escalators, early starters, late starters, and high escalators). The study provides a comprehensive view of adolescent substance use by examining the progression of use from early to late adolescence, demonstrates the usefulness of studying patterns of use across multiple substances, and underscores the importance of building classification schemes based on repeated measurements of substance use to reflect changes over time. Implications of the findings for future research and for identifying high-risk subgroups of adolescents for purposes of intervention based on timing and pattern of escalation are discussed.     

Slow development of vocal sequences through ontogeny in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus)

The development of the unique, hierarchical, and endless combinatorial capacity in a human language requires neural maturation and learning through childhood. Compared with most non-human primates, where combinatorial capacity seems limited, chimpanzees present a complex vocal system comprising hundreds of vocal sequences. We investigated how such a complex vocal system develops and the processes involved. We recorded 10,929 vocal utterances of 98 wild chimpanzees aged 0–55 years, from Taï National Park, Ivory Coast. We developed customized Generalized non-Linear Models to estimate the ontogenetic trajectory of four structural components of vocal complexity: utterance length, diversity, probability of panting (requiring phonation across inhalation and exhalation), and probability of producing two adjacent panted units. We found chimpanzees need 10 years to reach adult levels of vocal complexity. In three variables, the steepest increase coincided with the age of first non-kin social interactions (2–5 years), and plateaued in sub-adults (8–10 years), as individuals integrate into adult social life. Producing two adjacent panted units may require more neuromuscular coordination of the articulators, as its emergence and steepest increase appear later in development. These results suggest prolonged maturational processes beyond those hitherto thought likely in species that do not learn their vocal repertoire. Our results suggest that multifaceted ontogenetic processes drive increases in vocal structural complexity in chimpanzees, particularly increases in social complexity and neuro-muscular maturation. As humans live in a complex social world, empirical support for the “social complexity hypothesis” may have relevance for theories of language evolution.

Research Highlights

• Chimpanzees need around 10 years to develop the vocal structural complexity present in the adult repertoire, way beyond the age of emergence of every single vocal unit.
• Multifaceted ontogenetic processes may drive increases in vocal structural complexity in chimpanzees, particularly increases in social complexity and neuro-muscular maturation.
• Non-linear increases in vocal complexity coincide with social developmental milestones.
• Vocal sequences requiring rapid articulatory change emerge later than other vocal sequences, suggesting neuro-muscular maturational processes continue through the juvenile years.

     

Preventing preschool externalizing behavior problems through video‐feedback intervention in infancy

In the present study (1) intervention effects on children's preschool behavior problems were evaluated in a high risk sample with an overrepresentation of insecure adult attachment representations in 77 first‐time mothers, and (2) predictors and correlates of child problem behavior were examined. Early short‐term video‐feedback intervention to promote positive parenting (VIPP) focusing on maternal sensitivity and implemented in the baby's first year of life significantly protected children from developing clinical Total Problems at preschool age. Also, compared with the control group, fewer VIPP children scored in the clinical range for Externalizing Problems. No intervention effects on Internalizing clinical problem behavior were found. The VIPP effects on Externalizing and Total clinical Problems were not mediated by VIPP effects on sensitivity and infant attachment or moderated by mother or child variables. Maternal satisfaction with perceived support appeared to be associated with less children's Internalizing, Externalizing, and Total Problems. More research is needed to find the mechanisms triggered by VIPP, but the outcomes could be considered as promising first steps in the prevention of disturbing, externalizing behavior problems in young children.     

Early detection of handicapping conditions in infancy and early childhood: Toward a multivariate model

The major purpose of this study was to relate to infancy the occurence of significant learning or behavioral problems in adolescence. Original participants in the National Collaborative Perinatal Project in Rhode Island, who were also judged as handicapped after school entry, comprised the sample for this study. Environmental factors and child performance data collected at birth and at 4, 8, and 12 months of age were examined in terms of their power to predict handicapping conditions in the adolescent. Our results indicated that maternal education was a more accurate predictor of later learning and behavioral competency than the child's own developmental status up to 12 months of age. Furthermore, combining child-centered data and maternal education did not enhance predictive accuracy beyond that of maternal education considered in isolation. These findings underscore the critical role of molar environmental variables as antecedents of school failure, and suggest that models for screening in the first year of life and of multidisciplinary team diagnosis for handicapped children should include both environmental and child-focused dimensions to minimize overall classification error.     

The restriction of peripheral vision during exposure to hot and humid conditions

Eighteen, heat-acclimatized subjects were exposed to temperatures of 70/60° F. and 105/95° F. (air velocity 120 ft./min.) in three experiments requiring them to respond to a peripheral task concurrently with a continuous central pursuitmeter task. The peripheral signals were presented randomly in order and time at six positions, 20°, 50°, and 80° left and right to the point of fixation. The experimental findings suggest that when, while being subjected to high thermal conditions, operators are engaged in a central task consistently demanding their attention, there is a tendency for the field of awareness to be funnelled towards the centre. Signals presented at greater eccentric angles have a higher probability of being missed in the hotter condition. The longer the previous exposure to heat, the greater is the tendency to miss signals—but the effect does not always appear to be progressive during the actual performance. Operationally, the funnelling is defined by the proportional increase in the number of signals missed as the eccentric angle of the stimulus increases relative to the point of fixation. The phenomena does not occur when the perceptual load on the central task is reduced. Central attentional processes rather than mechanisms peripheral to the CNS are therefore implicated.     

Development of precision grips in chimpanzees

Although chimpanzees generally grasp small objects imprecisely between the knuckle joint of the index finger and thumb, they are capable of a true precision grip, which resembles the human pincer grip. They also grip small objects between the index and middle finger. The development of these precision grips takes place over several years into adulthood and they are not frequent before 8 years of age. Precision grips and imprecise grips are equally likely to be selected for objects of small size. Thus, not only is precise prehension relatively delayed in chimpanzees but also there is lack of consistency in selecting the distal parts of the index finger for thumb opposition. This is a qualitatively different developmental pattern than occurs in human infants who systematically select precision grips for small objects by 15 months.     

Strategies of schedule preference in chimpanzees

Two chimpanzees were required to choose between a fixed-ratio schedule and a progressive-ratio schedule which increased in response requirement by 20 responses each time it was chosen. Each choice of the fixed ratio reset the progressive ratio to its minimum value. The fixed-ratio requirement was varied from 40 to 1000 responses. The subjects' preferences for the progressive-ratio schedule varied as a function of the magnitude of the fixed-ratio requirement. An analysis of the preference data indicated that the animals tended to minimize reinforcement cost rather than match the progressive-ratio requirement to the fixed-ratio requirement. In a second experiment, selection of the fixed ratio did not reset the progressive-ratio requirement to its minimum value. In this case, the animals matched the progressive-ratio requirement to the fixed-ratio requirement. A model based on reinforcement cost is presented which permits accurate prediction of preferences between fixed and progressively increasing ratio schedules.     

Effects of impoverished environmental conditions on working memory performance

This cross-cultural study investigates the impact of background experience on four verbal and visuo-spatial working memory (WM) tasks. A total of 84 children from low-income families were recruited from the following groups: (1) Portuguese immigrant children from Luxembourg impoverished in terms of language experience; (2) Brazilian children deprived in terms of scholastic background; (3) Portuguese children from Portugal with no disadvantage in either scholastic or language background. Children were matched on age, gender, fluid intelligence, and socioeconomic status and completed four simple and complex span tasks of WM and a vocabulary measure. Results indicate that, despite large differences in their backgrounds and language abilities, the groups exhibited comparable performance on the visuo-spatial tasks dot matrix and odd-one-out and on the verbal simple span task digit recall. Group differences emerged on the verbal complex span task counting recall with children from Luxembourg and Portugal outperforming children from disadvantaged schools in Brazil. The study suggests that whereas contributions of prior knowledge to digit span, dot matrix, and odd-one-out are likely to be minimal, background experience can affect performance on counting recall. Implications for testing WM capacity in children growing up in poverty are discussed.     

Patterns of occupational choice and aspiration in conditions of economic and technological underdevelopment

A study of the patterns of vocational choice and aspiration of a group of postprimary schools in Nigeria, using a questionnaire schedule, revealed a durable and early crystalization of vocational decision and commitment. Excepting the girls, socio-economic status of the students had little influence on their level of vocational aspiration. These results are in contrast with the findings in many studies conducted in some industrialized Western societies which reveal the tendency for students in these societies, to defer vocational decision and commitment as long as possible, and also the effect students' socio-economic background has in conditioning their level of vocational aspiration. These differences in vocational behavior between these Nigerian students and their Western European counterparts are explained in terms of socio-cultural differences and differences in levels of technology, industrialization and economic activities. On the whole, the location of schools in rural areas has the effect of lowering the vocational aspiration of students in them.