What are the vocal experiences of children growing up on Malakula island, Vanuatu, where multilingualism is the norm? Long-form audio-recordings captured spontaneous speech behavior by, and around, 38 children (5-33 months, 23 girls) from 11 villages. Automated analyses revealed most children's vocal input came from female adults and other…

This study examined the extent to which the quality of teacher-infant interactions varies across play and routine care activities. In addition, the effects of the quantity of adult involvement in the quality of teacher-infant interactions were investigated. Participants were teachers and infants from 90 infant classrooms in Portugal. Classrooms…

In this study, we address the construction of the first symbolic uses of objects in contexts of triadic interaction (adult-child-object). We assume that symbolic productions are based on public rules of the use of objects previously agreed by the community. The first symbols are not rooted in any literal, evident reality, but in shared rules of…

Saccade latency is widely used across infant psychology to investigate infants' understanding of events. Interpreting particular latency values requires knowledge of standard saccadic RTs, but there is no consensus as to typical values. This study provides standard estimates of infants' (n = 194, ages 9 to 15 months) saccadic RTs under a range of…

In this article, the author synthesizes research from several disciplines to shed light on play's central role in healthy development. Gordon builds on research in attachment theory that correlates secure attachment in infancy with adult well-being to demonstrate how playfulness might be a lifelong outcome of secure attachment and a primary…

Although working memory has a highly constrained capacity limit of three or four items, both adults and toddlers can increase the total amount of stored information by "chunking" object representations in memory. To examine the developmental origins of chunking, we used a violation-of-expectation procedure to ask whether 7-month-old infants, whose…

J. Kagan (2008) urges contemporary developmentalists to (a) be cautious when attributing conceptual knowledge to infants based on looking-time performance, (b) constrain their interpretation of infant performance with multiple methodologies, and (c) reconsider the possibility that qualitative development may be the path by which perceptual infants…

Compares differences between adolescent and older mothers on tests of infant motor, cognitive, social and language development; and first- and second-year abilities. Older mothers were better at predicting emergence of infant behaviors and first-year behaviors. There was no difference between groups in predicting second-year behaviors. (Author/BB)

In follow-up studies conducted 36 hours, 3 months, and 12 months after delivery, maternal behavior, infant behavior, the duration of breast feeding, and attitudes toward child rearing procedures were shown to develop differently among mothers and infants receiving physical contact soon after birth as compared to control subjects who were briefly…

Only recently has the research on postpartum depression dealt with the disorder's effects on child development. This book explores the impact of postpartum depression on mother-infant interaction and child development, its treatment, and postpartum psychosis. The chapters are: (1) "The Nature of Postpartum Depressive Disorders" (Michael…

DESIGNED AS A TEXT FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AND AS A SOURCEBOOK FOR MORE ADVANCED STUDENTS, THIS VOLUME TRACES THE OUTLINES OF PHYSICAL GROWTH AND DECLINE, DESCRIBES SOME OF THE METHODS AND PROBLEMS OF INVESTIGATORS, AND POINTS TO THE PAUCITY OF INFORMATION IN CERTAIN AREAS. THE MAJOR TOPICS ARE (1) HEREDITY, (2) PRENATAL MATERNAL INFLUENCES,…