Parents of toddlers with an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; high risk, HR) and parents of low risk (LR) toddlers with typically-developing older siblings read a wordless picture book to their child at 22 and 28 months. Parents' and toddlers' internal state language (ISL) was coded; parents reported on toddlers' use of ISL.…

Toddlers with an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and low risk (LR) toddlers were observed at 22, 28, and 34 months during two empathy probes: a crying baby and an adult who pretended to hurt her finger. Toddlers with a later ASD diagnosis showed less empathic concern and self-distress at each age on both empathy probes than LR…

We examined concern for others in 22-month-old toddlers with an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and low risk typically-developing toddlers with older siblings. Responses to a crying infant and an adult social partner who pretended to hurt her finger were coded. Children with a later diagnosis of ASD showed limited empathic…

Toddlers with an older sibling with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and low risk (LR) toddlers with typically-developing older siblings were observed during free play with a parent and elicited pretend with an examiner at 22-months. Functional and pretend play, children's social engagement, and parent sensitivity were assessed during free play.…

To better understand young children's ability to communicate about their bodies, toddlers' comprehension and production of 27 common body-part words was assessed using parental report at 20 and 30 months (n?=?64), and self-awareness was assessed using mirror self-recognition. Children at both ages comprehended more body-part words that referred to…

To examine early developments in other-oriented resource sharing, fifty-one 18- and 24-month-old children were administered 6 tasks with toys or food that could be shared with an adult playmate who had none. On each task the playmate communicated her desire for the items in a series of progressively more explicit cues. Twenty-four-month-olds…

Developments in very young children's topographic representations of their own bodies were examined. Sixty-one 20- and 30-month-old children were administered tasks that indexed the ability to locate specific body parts on oneself and knowledge of how one's body parts are spatially organized, as well as body-size knowledge and self-awareness. Age…

The study explored how the meaning of prosocial behavior changes over toddlerhood. Sixty-five 18- and 30-month-olds could help an adult in 3 contexts: instrumental (action based), empathic (emotion based), and altruistic (costly). Children at both ages helped readily in instrumental tasks. For 18-month-olds, empathic helping was significantly more…

The developmental origins of sharing remain little understood. Using procedures adapted from research on prosocial behavior in chimpanzees, we presented 18- and 25-month-old children with a sharing task in which they could choose to deliver food to themselves only, or to both themselves and another person, thereby making it possible for them to…

Early development of body self-awareness was examined in 57 children at 18, 22, or 26 months of age, using tasks designed to require objective representation of one's own body. All children made at least one body representation error, with approximately 2.5 errors per task on average. Errors declined with age. Children's performance on comparison…

This paper focuses on possible relations between early peer skills and developing cognitive abilities. One promising area for discovering relations between cognitive development and peer interaction appears to be related to the young child's developing ability to differentiate self from other, that is, decentration. Decentration is typically…

Spontaneous peer interactions of toddlers paired in mixed- or same-age dyads were observed in an effort to see whether the toddlers would adjust their social behavior to the age of their partners. (PCB)

Observations suggest that 12-month-old children show little evidence of possession rules, while 18- and 24-month-olds are still coming to differentiate purely personal possession rules from shared possession rules that take into account the other child's status or rights as a possessor. Children 12 months old exhibited the highest frequency of…

Children at 12, 18, 24, and 30 months of age were observed in same-age, same-sex dyads while they attempted to solve a simple cooperation problem. Each child was given an elicited imitation task that was used to index decentration. Although no dyad of 12 month olds could cooperate, 24 and 30 month olds could coordinate behavior quickly and…

Children's ability to produce integrated sequences of discrete behaviors was examined as a function of age and task demands for several behavioral domains. Results are discussed in terms of possible age-related constraints on combinatorial skills that operate at a general, cross-domain level during toddlerhood. (RH)