Discrimination of Lexical Tones in the First Year of Life

In the current study, we examined the developmental course of the perception of non‐native tonal contrast. We tested 4, 6 and 12‐month‐old Dutch infants on their discrimination of Chinese low‐rising tone and low‐dipping tone using the visual fixation paradigm. The infants were tested in two conditions that differed in terms of degree of variability. The 4‐month‐olds did not show discrimination effect in either condition. The 6‐ and 12‐month‐old infants, however, discriminated the tones in both conditions. The improvement of perception might be the result of cognitive development carried over from learning the native phonology. Infants can become better listeners in general in the first year of life, as well as get cognitively better equipped in dealing with the variable input in speech in general. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social Understanding at the End of the First Year of Life

Social behaviors, such as joint attention, social referencing, and protocommunicative acts, which emerge toward the end of the first year of life, have commonly been taken as evidence of considerable social understanding, even an "implicit" theory of mind. We identify the theoretical assumptions that this "commonsense view" entails and argue against this view of these behaviors by suggesting that the phenomena are entirely compatible with an account which does not attribute to the infant an understanding that others have psychological relations to objects or that self and others are equivalent in their potential for such psychological relations. We end by arguing that the account we propose potentially provides a developmental solution to the problem of how the child develops a theory of mind that is equally applicable to self and other without postulating the existence of considerable innate knowledge.     

Development of Self-regulation Abilities as Predictors of Psychological Adjustment Across the First Year of College

The first year of college can be a difficult developmental transition for many students, although it is also a time of personal growth and maturation. Little is known about how self-regulation abilities mature across this transition, nor whether maturation predicts better adjustment across the first year. We investigated the development of three self-regulation abilities (constructive thinking, emotional regulation, and mastery) and relations of this development to adjustment (depression, anxiety, and stress) in a sample of 162 first-year students. Data were gathered at two time points: just prior to their attendance at a large public northeastern university and then again at the end of the first year. Results indicated that, on average, students did not increase in their constructive thinking or emotion regulation abilities and actually decreased in their sense of mastery. In bivariate analyses, increases in all three self-regulation abilities were related to better adjustment across the year, effects that remained when examined simultaneously in multiple regression analyses. Further, analyses showed that change in self-regulation abilities, rather than mean levels per se, predicted changes in adjustment over the first year. Implications for interventions to assist students in the development of these self-regulation skills in regard to adjustment are discussed.     

Maternal and Infant Temperament Characteristics as Contributors to Parenting Stress in the First Year Postpartum

Although prominent models emphasize that maternal, child, and situational variables are associated with parenting stress, previous research has often neglected to examine associations between maternal and infant temperament characteristics and stress experienced in the parenting role. Additionally, while predictors of global parenting stress have been examined, predictors of stress related to specific aspects of the parenting role have been largely unexplored. The present study examined maternal and infant temperament characteristics as predictors of parenting stress, both globally and specifically. Mothers (n = 159) completed measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms and a measure of adult temperament when their infants were 4 months old. At 6 months postpartum, caregivers completed a measure of infant temperament, and at 8 months postpartum, a measure of parenting stress. Results indicated that maternal effortful control and infant negative emotionality predicted global maternal parenting stress. Additionally, all maternal and infant temperament variables, with the exception of maternal negative affectivity and infant surgency/extraversion, were uniquely predictive of at least one specific aspect of parenting‐related stress. Findings emphasize the importance of considering maternal and infant temperament characteristics as contributors to parenting stress in the first year postpartum. Implications of these findings for future research and intervention are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Television Viewing and Attentional Abilities in Fourth and Fifth Grade Children

To evaluate the common assumption that television viewing is related to attentional difficulties in school, 70 fourth and fifth grade students recorded a “television diary” for one week and reported their preferred television shows. Parents estimated their child's television viewing time and reported their child's preferred shows. Assessment of attentional difficulties included teacher ratings, parent ratings, standardized tests, and classroom observations. It was found that the amount of television a child viewed was significantly related to teacher ratings of attentional difficulties, but not to parent ratings, classroom observations or a standardized test. Type of shows viewed did not relate to any attentional outcome variable. There was a clear relationship between fourth and fifth grade children's ability to pay attention in school, as assessed by their teacher, and the amount of time they spent watching television.     

Temperament and Parenting during the First Year of Life Predict Future Child Conduct Problems

Predictive associations between parenting and temperament during the first year of life and child conduct problems were assessed longitudinally in 1,863 offspring of a representative sample of women. Maternal ratings of infant fussiness, activity level, predictability, and positive affect each independently predicted maternal ratings of conduct problems during ages 4–13 years. Furthermore, a significant interaction indicated that infants who were both low in fussiness and high in predictability were at very low risk for future conduct problems. Fussiness was a stronger predictor of conduct problems in boys whereas fearfulness was a stronger predictor in girls. Conduct problems also were robustly predicted by low levels of early mother-report cognitive stimulation when infant temperament was controlled. Interviewer-rated maternal responsiveness was a robust predictor of conduct problems, but only among infants low in fearfulness. Spanking during infancy predicted slightly more severe conduct problems, but the prediction was moderated by infant fussiness and positive affect. Thus, individual differences in risk for mother-rated conduct problems across childhood are already partly evident in maternal ratings of temperament during the first year of life and are predicted by early parenting and parenting-by-temperament interactions.

亲子自传叙事中母亲语言支架的研究综述

亲子自传叙事中母亲的语言支架指母亲在对过去事件进行回忆和交流的过程中给儿童提供的引导性语言。母亲语言支架的风格分为高详尽和低详尽两个水平,高详尽的语言风格更能促进儿童语言、认知和社会情感的发展。在特定情绪性事件中,母亲的语言支架对儿童社会性的发展也有十分重要的影响。此外,亲子自传叙事中母亲的语言支架还存在性别和社会文化差异,且在特殊儿童身上表现出不同的特点。未来应加强对母亲语言支架的影响因素以及母亲回忆目标对语言支架的影响等问题的探讨。     

Maternal Executive Functioning and Scaffolding in Families of Children with and without Parent-Reported ADHD

Parental scaffolding robustly predicts child developmental outcomes, including improved self-regulation and peer relationships and fewer externalizing behaviors. However, few studies have examined parental characteristics associated with a parent’s ability to scaffold. Executive functioning (EF) may be an important individual difference factor associated with maternal scaffolding that has yet to be examined empirically. Scaffolding may be particularly important for children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and disruptive behavior disorder (DBD) symptoms due to their core difficulties with inattention, disorganization, EF, and self-regulation, their need for greater parental structure, and higher-than-average rates of parental EF deficits. Yet, little research has examined child ADHD in relation to parental scaffolding. This cross-sectional study examined: (1) the association between maternal EF (as measured by the Hotel Test, Barkley’s Deficits in Executive Functioning Scale, and Digit Span) and observed scaffolding, (2) the association between parent-reported child ADHD/DBD symptoms and scaffolding, and (3) the interaction between child ADHD/DBD symptoms and maternal EF in predicting scaffolding. In a sample of 84 mothers and their 5–10 year-old biological children (62% male) with and without parent-reported ADHD, we found that maternal EF, as measured by Digit Span and the Hotel Test, predicted observed maternal scaffolding. However, child ADHD/DBD symptoms did not significantly predict maternal scaffolding controlling for child age, maternal education, and maternal EF, nor did the interaction of maternal EF and parent-reported child ADHD/DBD symptoms. Working memory and task shifting may be key components of parental EF that could be targeted in interventions to improve parental scaffolding.     

The Importance of Sound for Cognitive Sequencing Abilities: The Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis

ABSTRACT— Sound is inherently a temporal and sequential signal. Experience with sound therefore may help bootstrap—that is, provide a kind of "scaffolding" for—the development of general cognitive abilities related to representing temporal or sequential patterns. Accordingly, the absence of sound early in development may result in disturbances to these sequencing skills. In support of this hypothesis, we present two types of findings. First, normal-hearing adults do best on sequencing tasks when the sense of hearing, rather than sight, can be used. Second, recent findings suggest that deaf children have disturbances on exactly these same kinds of tasks that involve learning and manipulation of serial-order information. We suggest that sound provides an "auditory scaffolding" for time and serial-order behavior, possibly mediated through neural connections between the temporal and frontal lobes of the brain. Under conditions of auditory deprivation, auditory scaffolding is absent, resulting in neural reorganization and a disturbance to cognitive sequencing abilities.     

Resilience in the Face of Maternal Psychopathology and Adverse Life Events

Maternal psychopathology has long been recognized as a risk factor for psychopathology in offspring; however, some resilient youth achieve a favorable outcome in the presence of maternal psychopathology. We identified factors that predicted resilience among youth who were exposed to adverse life events, and also examined whether the same factors protected youth against maternal psychopathology and adverse life events. Main and interaction effects of child and family factors were examined employing cross-sectional data from a household probability sample of 1285 youth aged 9 through 17 collected at four sites. On average, children exhibited a greater degree of resilience when they had higher IQ, closer parental monitoring, better family functioning, higher educational aspiration, and were female. Interaction between maternal psychopathology and IQ was significant, and there was a trend between maternal psychopathology and gender. A higher IQ is a protective factor against both maternal psychopathology and adverse life events; whereas being a girl seems to be a protective factor against maternal psychopathology, but not adverse life events.     

Factor Structure of Temperament in the Third Year of Life

In two procedures, subjects were asked to perform an arithmetic task while hearing distracting auditory messages. Subjects were instructed to ignore these messages. After each trial, subjects judged how disruptive they felt that trial's distractor had been. Subjects' self-reports were unrelated to the actual distraction effect, measured in performance. In Experiment 2, a manipulation of motivation considerably decreased the auditory messages' ability to distract; this large shift in distractor potency was not reflected in subjects' self-reports. In both procedures, subjects' judgments of distraction were not random but were systematically related to parameters of message content, parameters that turned out to be irrelevant for distractor potency.     

Critical Incidents in the Professional Lives of First Year MFT Students

First year MFT students engaged in a journaling project, selecting one event daily which captured something about being a student, including the process of therapy, consultation, and supervision, that struck them as important in terms of their professional development. On reflection, the students saw therapeutic success and professional confidence as systemic products of a variety of contextual factors: transient and enduring aspects of the self and the client, faculty, peer, and family influences, and treatment setting and program factors. Students and faculty experienced this formative self study as valuable and believe that it should be done at the beginning, middle, and end of an educational program and the results shared with both faculty and students.     

Understanding the Sexuality of Infants Within Caregiving Relationships in the First Year

Infants’ innate joyful sexuality in the 1st year, as well as parental sexuality, are relatively neglected in models of clinical work with infants. We offer a developmental perspective that pays close attention to the body of the infant, in contrast to some psychoanalytic theories that view infantile sexuality as phantasy. With greater awareness of the infant’s body as sexual, therapists could develop a more resonant countertransference and become more aware of the experiences of the infant as subject. Some symptomatic difficulties are described, and the relevance for psychotherapeutic intervention with adults is indicated.     

First Year Post-Katrina: Changes in Occupational Performance and Emotional Responses

The purpose of this retrospective study was to determine whether Hurricane Katrina affected the occupational performance and emotional states of New Orleans area residents affected by the hurricane over the first year post-Katrina. A purposeful sample of 143 adults who lived in the New Orleans area just prior to Katrina completed a questionnaire one year after Katrina. Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with their occupational performance and emotional states at four time periods: August 2005, before Katrina; September 2005, one month after Katrina; March 2006, six months post-Katrina; and September 2006, one year post-Katrina. The most notable findings were that both satisfaction with occupational performance and emotional states showed marked declines during the month immediately following Katrina, with some recovery six months post-Katrina, and further recovery a year after Katrina. At one year post-Katrina however, the recovery of satisfaction with occupational performance and emotional states approached, but did not quite reach pre-Katrina baseline responses. Further, women did not fare as well as men post-Katrina, on both variables. Limitations of the study, implications of findings for the theory and practice of occupational therapy in the area of disaster responses, and possible future research are discussed.     

Motor Development During the First Year: A Comparative Study

This investigation of the motor development characteristics of Brazilian infants during the 1st year of postnatal life compared the findings with those of a widely used U.S. sample (N. Bayley, 1993). Analysis of the 12 monthly assessments indicated that Brazilian infants' scores increased with age, with the greatest increase occurring over the first 8 months. As a general comparison, the results are similar to the U.S. patterns of development. However, the Brazilian sample exhibited mean scores significantly lower than the U.S. sample's in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th months. More specific analyses indicated that the difference within these months was on tasks of sitting and grasping. Possible explanations for the differences focus on variations in child-rearing practices and the influence of biological maturation in early movement behaviors.     

Longitudinal Validation of the Urgency Traits Over the First Year of College

Research has identified 2 emotion-based dispositions to rash action, referred to as positive urgency and negative urgency. They are thought to reflect tendencies to engage in rash acts when in extremely positive and extremely negative moods, respectively. In this article, we describe the first direct test of this hypothesis. We measured the urgency traits and risky behavior involvement while in extremely positive and negative moods over the course of the first year of college for 292 students. After controlling for sex, typical mood state, and prior mood-based rash behavior, positive urgency predicted increases in positive mood-based rash action, and negative urgency predicted increases in negative mood-based rash action during the first year of college. These results provide further evidence for the validity of the theory of emotion-based rash action and for the measures of positive and negative urgency.     

Stress and Subjective Well-Being Among First Year UK Undergraduate Students

Transition to university is stressful and successful adjustment is imperative for well-being. Historically research on transitional stress focussed on negative outcomes and ill health. This is the first UK study applying a positive psychology approach to investigate the characteristics that facilitate adjustment among new university students. A range of psychological strengths conceptualised as covitality factors, shown individually to influence the stress and subjective well-being (SWB) relationship were assessed among 192 first year UK undergraduates in week three of their first semester and again 6 months later. Path analyses revealed that optimism mediated the relationship between stress and negative affect (a component of SWB) over time, and academic self-efficacy demonstrated significant relationships with life satisfaction and positive affect. Contrary to predictions, stress levels remained stable over time although academic alienation increased and self-efficacy decreased. Optimism emerged as a key factor for new students to adjust to university, helping to buffer the impact of stress on well-being throughout the academic year. Incorporating stress management and psycho-educational interventions to develop strengths is discussed as a way of promoting confidence and agency in new students to help them cope better with the stress at university.