Auditory‐motor adaptation is reduced in adults who stutter but not in children who stutter

Previous studies have shown that adults who stutter produce smaller corrective motor responses to compensate for unexpected auditory perturbations in comparison to adults who do not stutter, suggesting that stuttering may be associated with deficits in integration of auditory feedback for online speech monitoring. In this study, we examined whether stuttering is also associated with deficiencies in integrating and using discrepancies between expected and received auditory feedback to adaptively update motor programs for accurate speech production. Using a sensorimotor adaptation paradigm, we measured adaptive speech responses to auditory formant frequency perturbations in adults and children who stutter and their matched nonstuttering controls. We found that the magnitude of the speech adaptive response for children who stutter did not differ from that of fluent children. However, the adaptation magnitude of adults who stutter in response to auditory perturbation was significantly smaller than the adaptation magnitude of adults who do not stutter. Together these results indicate that stuttering is associated with deficits in integrating discrepancies between predicted and received auditory feedback to calibrate the speech production system in adults but not children. This auditory‐motor integration deficit thus appears to be a compensatory effect that develops over years of stuttering.     

The development of cognitive empathy and concern in preschool children: A behavioral neuroscience investigation

This developmental neuroscience study examined the electrophysiological responses (EEG and ERPs) associated with perspective taking and empathic concern in preschool children, as well as their relation to parental empathy dispositions and children's own prosocial behavior. Consistent with a body of previous studies using stimuli depicting somatic pain in both children and adults, larger early (~200 ms) ERPs were identified when perceiving painful versus neutral stimuli. In the slow wave window (~800 ms), a significant interaction of empathy condition and stimulus type was driven by a greater difference between painful and neutral images in the empathic concern condition. Across early development, children exhibited enhanced N2 to pain when engaging in empathic concern. Greater pain‐elicited N2 responses in the cognitive empathy condition also related to parent dispositional empathy. Children's own prosocial behavior was predicted by several individual differences in neural function, including larger early LPP responses during cognitive empathy and greater differentiation in late LPP and slow wave responses to empathic concern versus affective perspective taking. Left frontal activation (greater alpha suppression) while engaging in affective perspective taking was also related to higher levels of parent cognitive empathy. Together, this multilevel analysis demonstrates the important distinction between facets of empathy in children; the value of examining neurobehavioral processes in development. It provides provoking links between children's neural functioning and parental dispositions in early development.     

Auditory access,language access,and implicit sequence learning in deaf children

Developmental psychology plays a central role in shaping evidence‐based best practices for prelingually deaf children. The Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis (Conway et al., 2009) asserts that a lack of auditory stimulation in deaf children leads to impoverished implicit sequence learning abilities, measured via an artificial grammar learning (AGL) task. However, prior research is confounded by a lack of both auditory and language input. The current study examines implicit learning in deaf children who were (Deaf native signers) or were not (oral cochlear implant users) exposed to language from birth, and in hearing children, using both AGL and Serial Reaction Time (SRT) tasks. Neither deaf nor hearing children across the three groups show evidence of implicit learning on the AGL task, but all three groups show robust implicit learning on the SRT task. These findings argue against the Auditory Scaffolding Hypothesis, and suggest that implicit sequence learning may be resilient to both auditory and language deprivation, within the tested limits. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/EeqfQqlVHLI [Correction added on 07 August 2017, after first online publication: The video abstract link was added.]     

What's parenting got to do with it: emotional autonomy and brain and behavioral responses to emotional conflict in children and adolescents

Healthy parenting may be protective against the development of emotional psychopathology, particularly for children reared in stressful environments. Little is known, however, about the brain and behavioral mechanisms underlying this association, particularly during childhood and adolescence, when emotional disorders frequently emerge. Here, we demonstrate that psychological control, a parenting strategy known to limit socioemotional development in children, is associated with altered brain and behavioral responses to emotional conflict in 27 at‐risk (urban, lower income) youth, ages 9–16. In particular, youth reporting higher parental psychological control demonstrated lower activity in the left anterior insula, a brain area involved in emotion conflict processing, and submitted faster but less accurate behavioral responses—possibly reflecting an avoidant pattern. Effects were not replicated for parental care, and did not generalize to an analogous nonemotional conflict task. We also find evidence that behavioral responses to emotional conflict bridge the previously reported link between parental overcontrol and anxiety in children. Effects of psychological control may reflect a parenting style that limits opportunities to practice self‐regulation when faced with emotionally charged situations. Results support the notion that parenting strategies that facilitate appropriate amounts of socioemotional competence and autonomy in children may be protective against social and emotional difficulties.     

Human milk cortisol concentration predicts experimentally induced infant fear reactivity: moderation by infant sex

Little consideration has been given to the possibility of human infant development being shaped via lactocrine programming, and by breast milk cortisol levels specifically. Despite animal models indicating that glucocorticoid (GC) exposure via lactation might modify brain development and behavior, only one study has reported that milk cortisol levels were positively associated with infant negative affectivity, especially fearfulness and sadness—early emerging risk factors for internalizing difficulties such as anxiety. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether human milk cortisol is associated with mother‐reported fearfulness and experimentally induced infant fear reactivity. Mother‐infant dyads (n = 65) enrolled in the FinnBrain Cohort Study participated. Breast milk samples were obtained 2.5 months postpartum, and milk cortisol concentrations were ascertained using validated luminescence immunoassay methodology. Infant fear reactivity was assessed using maternal reports 6 months postpartum and in a laboratory 8 months postpartum. There was a significant interaction between infant sex and milk cortisol such that higher milk cortisol was related to higher infant fear reactivity in a laboratory setting in girls (β = 0.36, p = .04) but not in boys (β = ?0.15, p = .40). Milk cortisol was not associated with mother‐reported infant fearfulness. Results suggest that higher human milk cortisol concentrations are associated with elevated experimentally induced fear in infancy. Findings support lactocrine programming, and suggest that mothers may “communicate” vital information about stressful environments via cortisol contained in breast milk, shaping girls' early emotional reactivity.     

Audio‐visual speech in noise perception in dyslexia

Individuals with developmental dyslexia (DD) may experience, besides reading problems, other speech‐related processing deficits. Here, we examined the influence of visual articulatory information (lip‐read speech) at various levels of background noise on auditory word recognition in children and adults with DD. We found that children with a documented history of DD have deficits in their ability to gain benefit from lip‐read information that disambiguates noise‐masked speech. We show with another group of adult individuals with DD that these deficits persist into adulthood. These deficits could not be attributed to impairments in unisensory auditory word recognition. Rather, the results indicate a specific deficit in audio‐visual speech processing and suggest that impaired multisensory integration might be an important aspect of DD.     

Theory‐of‐Mind development and early sibling relationships after the birth of a sibling: Parental discipline matters

This study investigated relations among children's Theory‐of‐Mind (ToM) development, early sibling interactions, and parental discipline strategies during the transition to siblinghood. Using a sample of firstborn children and their parents (N = 208), we assessed children's ToM before the birth of a sibling and 12 months after the birth, and sibling interactions (i.e., positive engagement and antagonism) and parental discipline strategies (i.e., child‐centred and parent‐centred discipline) at 4 and 8 months in the first year of siblinghood. Structural equation modelling analyses revealed that children's ToM before the birth of the sibling predicted children's positive engagement with the infant sibling, whereas children's antagonistic behaviours towards the infant sibling negatively predicted children's ToM at 12 months, but only when mothers used low levels of child‐centred discipline. These findings emphasize the role of parents in the development of young children's social‐cognitive understanding in the context of early sibling interactions.

Highlights

• This study investigated relations among firstborns' Theory‐of‐Mind (ToM), early sibling relationships, and parental discipline during the first year of siblinghood.
• Multigroup analyses showed that ToM predicted higher sibling positive engagement, and early sibling antagonism predicted poorer ToM when mothers used low child‐centred discipline.
• Parental discipline plays an important role in the development of young children's social understanding and sibling relationships as early as the first year of siblinghood.

     

Intersectional experiences of discrimination in a low‐resource urban community: An exploratory latent class analysis

There have been increasing calls for the application of an intersectionality framework to understand and address discrimination and health inequities among diverse communities. Yet there have been theoretical debates regarding to whom intersectionality applies and how intersectional experiences of discrimination are associated with health outcomes. The current study aimed to contribute to these theoretical debates and inform practical applications to reduce health inequities. Data were drawn from a community health survey in New Haven, CT (N = 1,293 adults) and analysed using latent class analysis. Results yielded 4 classes. Members of the 4 classes were similar sociodemographically. Three classes of participants reported experiencing discrimination, and members of these classes had greater stress, higher rates of smoking and sleep disruption, and worse overall health than members of the class reporting no discrimination. Members of 2 classes made multiple, or intersectional, attributions for discrimination, and members of these classes reported the most frequent discrimination. Findings suggest that community members who are sociodemographically similar may have diverse discrimination experiences. Multilevel interventions that address multiple forms of discrimination (e.g., racism and sexism) may hold promise for reducing discrimination and, ultimately, health inequities within low‐resource urban community settings.