Learning about emotions is an important part of children's social and communicative development. How does children's emotion-related vocabulary emerge over development? How may emotion-related information in caregiver input support learning of emotion labels and other emotion-related words? This investigation examined language production and input…

Caregiving is requisite to wholesome child development from the beginning of life. A cross-sectional microgenetic analysis of six caregiving practices across the child's 1st year (0-12 months) in 42,539 families from nationally representative samples in 38 low- and middle-income countries is reported. Rates of caregiving varied tremendously within…

This study evaluated the impact of a parenting intervention on children's cognitive and socioemotional development in a group of caregivers and their 21-to-28-month-old children in a low-income South African township. A randomized controlled trial compared an experimental group (n = 70) receiving training in dialogic book-sharing (8 weekly group…

Teaching supports the high-fidelity transmission of knowledge and skills. This study examined similarities and differences in caregiver teaching practices in the United States and Vanuatu (N = 125 caregiver and 3- to 8-year-old child pairs) during a collaborative problem-solving task. Caregivers used diverse verbal and nonverbal teaching practices…

This article presents a description of how an interdisciplinary network of academic researchers, community-based programs, parents, and state agencies have joined together to design, test, and scale a suite of innovative intervention strategies rooted in new knowledge about the biology of adversity. Through a process of cocreation, collective…

To investigate the effects of child-caregiver ratio on the quality of caregiver-child interaction in child-care centers, 217 caregivers (ages 18-56 years) from 64 child care centers were observed during two structured play episodes: one with a group of three children and one with a group of 5 children. As predicted, a child-caregiver ratio of 3:1…

Meta-analysis aggregated results of 40 investigations involving 2,867 children who averaged 29.6 ("SD" = 8.6) months of age when their attachments to care providers were assessed using either the Strange Situation (SS) or the Attachment Q-Set (AQS). As opposed to parents, secure attachments to nonparental care providers were less likely (using SS)…

Data are reported from 3 groups of children residing in Bucharest, Romania. Face recognition in currently institutionalized, previously institutionalized, and never-institutionalized children was assessed at 3 time points: preintervention (n = 121), 30 months of age (n = 99), and 42 months of age (n = 77). Children watched photographs of caregiver…

Explored relations between additive and cumulative representations of contextual risk, caregiver emotionality, child adaptability, and teacher reports of problem behaviors of 6- and 7-year-olds from economically disadvantaged families. Found evidence that the relation for cumulative risk may be moderated by caregiver negative emotionality and…

Compared behavior of 52 Costa Rican 12- to 23-month-olds with iron-deficiency anemia to that of 139 infants with better iron status. Found that iron-deficient infants maintained closer contact with caregivers; showed less pleasure and playfulness; were more wary, hesitant, and easily tired; made fewer attempts at test items; and attended less to…

Four studies assessed adults' latencies to signal they would respond to infant crying as a function of perceived infant distress and contextual information relevant to caregiving. Results suggested that adults' responses are influenced by both acoustic gradations in the cry and the caregiving context. Ratings of degree of distress may be highly,…

Naturalistic home observations of 54 preterm infants and their caregivers were made when the infants were 1, 3, and 8 months of age. Differences were found in the kinds of everyday transactions which occur with preterm infants raised with and without siblings. (Author/JMB)

Examined the influence of social context variables on separation responses in nine-month-old infants. Indicated that nine month olds need not be highly stressed by being put in a new setting with a substitute caregiver. Use of procedures practiced in a model day care program effectively buffeted infant stress responses under individual and group…

Provides a comparative assessment of maternal and nonmaternal infant caregiving practices in own-home and unregulated family day-care homes, respectively. A total of 30 caregivers (10 employed mothers, 10 substitute caregivers, and 10 nonemployed mothers) were observed in interaction with five- to six-month-old infants. (Author/RH)

Social interactions regarding moral and conventional transgressions were observed among two toddler groups. Each of 16 day care center classrooms, eight serving 13- to 27-month-olds and eight serving 18- to 40-month-olds, was observed for three 45-minute sessions. Implications of results concerned the developmental origins of distinctions between…