Process praise (i.e., praise for effort) facilitates childhood persistence. However, less is known about the mechanism by which process praise influences persistence in infancy. Here, we propose that well-timed process praise reinforces the link between effort and success, thus promoting persistence in young children. In Experiment 1, U.S. infants…

This study used an ethological approach to explore the behavioural adaptation of nineteen infants during their first six weeks in Residential Care (RC), or a Foster Family (FF) or an Infant-Mother Centre (IMC). Direct observations were conducted once a week at bath time. Observed behaviours were: sleep-wake states, visual exploration, motor…

The aim of this review is to identify the behavioural soothing interventions (BSIs) used for reducing infant crying and to determine their effect. Studies had to describe an experimental study addressing infant crying and BSIs in the first six months after birth. Searches were performed in Web of Science, Pubmed, Science Direct, EBSCOhost,…

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…

International research, while mostly conducted in high-income countries, repeatedly states that parents of premature infants have increased needs and require additional information and varied support channels after the infant's initial discharge from hospital. However, the perceived self-reported needs of parents concerned with the caregiving of…

American parents and policymakers are failing to acknowledge the significant links between early childhood literacy and academic success. This experimental study investigated the effects of daily reading with 150 infants between the ages of 14 to 28 months throughout a 28-day period. Participants from all economic, demographic, and ethnic…

There is a need to identify children with potential mental health issues early in order to provide "an ounce of prevention." Unfortunately, there are few instruments available to identify emotional and behavioral issues in infants and many never receive intervention. We developed the Brief Child and Family Intake and Outcomes System for…

This study examined whether a novel parent-report questionnaire, the Autism Parent Screen for Infants, could differentiate infants subsequently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder from a high-risk cohort (siblings of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (n = 66)) from high-risk and low-risk comparison infants (no family history of…

Newborn infants preferentially orient to familiar over unfamiliar speech sounds. They are also better at remembering unfamiliar speech sounds for short periods of time if learning and retention occur after a feed than before. It is unknown whether short-term memory for speech is enhanced when the sound is familiar (versus unfamiliar) and, if so,…

In the present study, we examined if young infants can extract information regarding the directionality of biological motion. We report that 6-month-old infants can differentiate leftward and rightward motions from a movie depicting the sagittal view of an upright human point-light walker, walking as if on a treadmill. Inversion of the stimuli…

Infants' response to maternal mirroring was investigated in 4-month-old infants. Mother-infant dyads participated in the still face and replay tasks. Infants were grouped by those whose mothers did and did not mirror their behavior in the interactive phases of the tasks. In the still face task, infants with maternal mirroring showed more…

This study investigated the relation between maternal contingent responsiveness and 4- and 5-month-old infants' (N = 64) social expectation behavior in a still-face procedure. Mothers were asked to interact with their infants for 2 min (interactive phase), remain still-faced for 1 min (still-face phase), and resume interaction for 2 min. Mother…

This experiment investigated the impact of the path of approach of an object, from head on versus from the side, and the type of imminent contact with that object, a hit versus a miss, on young infants' perceptions of object looming. Consistent with earlier studies, we found that 4- to 5-month-old infants do indeed discriminate hits versus misses.…

This study examined 6-month-old infants' abilities to use the visual information provided by simulated self-movement through the world, and movement of an object through the world, for spatial orientation. Infants were habituated to a visual display in which they saw a toy hidden, followed by either rotation of the point of observation through the…

Tests the hypothesis that infants may learn to respond to cues which consistently specify the ultimate location of an object which is displaced while invisible. Subjects were 96 nine-month-old infants. (MP)