Research Findings: Temperament, which can be assessed as early as 3 months, is associated with school readiness and later academic achievement in children born full term. Although children born preterm demonstrate a dysregulated temperament and are at significant risk for lower school readiness, we found no studies investigating whether early…

Being looked at is an important communicative signal, and attenuated responses to such direct gaze have been suggested as an early sign of autism. Using live eye tracking, we examined whether direct gaze elicits different gaze responses in infants at ages 10, 14 and 18 months with and without later autism in real-life interaction. The sample…

Behavioural, cognitive and emotional dysregulation related to parent borderline personality disorder (BPD) may have a major impact on parent-infant interactions. We investigated the ways in which infant social withdrawal and mother sensitivity may be associated to a BPD diagnosis in mothers. Two groups of clinic-referred mother-infant dyads were…

The aim of this study was to explore the associations between temperamental reactivity and regulation and the emergence of anxiety traits in a longitudinal sample of infants enriched for later ASD. Parents of 143 infants who were at high- and low-risk for ASD rated their child's temperament traits when they were 9, 15 and 24 months old; they rated…

The objectives were to characterize behavioral signs of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in younger siblings of diagnosed children (high-risk; HR) and examine classification features of the Autism Observation Scale for Infants (AOSI). Participants (501 HR and 180 low-risk [LR]) were assessed between 6 and 18 months using the AOSI and at age 3 for…

Background and Aims: The purpose of this exploratory study was to expand existing literature on prelinguistic vocalizations by reporting results of the first home-based longitudinal study examining a wide variety of behaviors and characteristics, including early vocalizations, across infants at low and elevated risk of autism spectrum disorder…

Previous research assessing consequences of interpregnancy intervals (IPIs) on child development is mixed. Utilizing a population-based US sample (n = 5339), we first estimate the associations between background characteristics (e.g. sociodemographic and maternal characteristics) and short ([less than or equal to]1 year) and long (>3 years)…

This study examines the construct validity of the First-Year Inventory 2.0 with respect to other established instruments in a sample of high-risk infant siblings of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The First-Year Inventory 2.0 is a parent-report screening instrument designed to identify 12-month-old infants at risk for an eventual diagnosis…