ERIC Number: EJ1087796
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 16
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1522-7227
EISSN: N/A
Socio-Economic Status (SES) Affects Infants' Selective Exploration
Tacke, Nicholas F.; Bailey, Lillian S.; Clearfield, Melissa W.
Infant and Child Development, v24 n6 p571-586 Nov-Dec 2015
Infants change their behaviours in accordance with the objects they are exploring. They also tailor their exploratory actions to the physical context. This selectivity of exploratory actions represents a foundational cognitive skill that underlies higher-level cognitive processes. The present study compared the development of selective exploratory behaviours in high and low socio-economic status (SES) infants. Sixty-one 6-8- and 10-12-month-old infants were presented with rigid and flexible cubes on a tray that was half rigid and half flexible. There were SES effects for each category of exploratory behaviours: object only, surface only and object-surface interactions. Low-SES infants engaged in comparable amounts of exploratory behaviours with high-SES infants, but they exhibited behaviours less conducive to information uptake, compared with high-SES infants. The results suggest difficulty for low-SES infants in transitioning to more mature exploration strategies.
Descriptors: Socioeconomic Status, Infants, Infant Behavior, Behavior Change, Cognitive Processes, Task Analysis, Object Manipulation, Comparative Analysis, Physical Environment
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A