Developmental psychology focuses on how psychological constructs change with age. In cognitive development research, however, the specifics of this emergence is often underspecified. Researchers often provisionally assume linear growth by including chronological age as a predictor in regression models. In this work, we aim to evaluate this…

An extensive literature links language problems with behavioral difficulties and academic underachievement. Although less extensive, emerging literature suggests that temperament, Positive Affectivity (PA) in particular, contributes to language development. Thus, the present study was focused on PA related temperament dimensions in infancy as…

Infants' preference for faces was investigated in a cross-sectional sample of 75 children, aged 3 to 11 months, and 23 adults. A visual preference paradigm was used where pairs of faces and toys were presented side-by-side while eye gaze was recorded. In addition, motor activity was assessed via parent report and the relation between motor…

This research examined the child, parent, and family conditions under which attachment disorganization was related to both level and change in externalizing behavior during preschool among a community sample. Using the ordinary least squares regression, we found that attachment disorganization at 12 months significantly predicted children's…

We evaluated the extent to which the externalizing behavior construct is self-organizing in the first 2 years of life. Based on dynamic systems theory, we hypothesized that changes in physical aggression, defiance, activity level, and distress to limitations would each be predicted by earlier manifestations of one another. These hypotheses were…

The current study examined the influence of maternal characteristics on the development of infant smiling and laughter, a marker of early positive emotionality (PE) and how maternal characteristics and the development of infant PE contributed to subsequent maternal parenting. One hundred fifty-nine mothers with 4-month-old infants participated.…

Fifty-three infants were observed at 6 and 12 months during two 24-minute play sessions and administered Bayley Scales of Infant development at 6 and 12 months and McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities at 30 months. Findings indicated that infant behaviors predicting competence change with age; mastery behavior appears to predict development…

Examined affective and motoric reactivity hypothesized to be associated with later inhibited and uninhibited behavior. Affect and reactivity were classified at four months. Brain electrical activity was assessed at 9 months, and behavior toward novelty, at 14 months. Found that greater activation in both the left and right frontal hemispheres was…

Baseline and heelstick measures of behavioral state, heart period, vagal tone, and salivary cortisol were obtained from 50 full-term newborns. Mothers completed Rothbart's Infant Behavior Questionnaire when the infants reached six months of age. Greater reactivity to the heelstick was associated with lower scores on the…

Longitudinal data indicated a significant relation between five-month vagal tone and negative reactivity elicited in the laboratory and maternal ratings of activity level and smiling behavior. Newborn vagal tone predicted maternal ratings of frustration and fear. Moderate stability was found for infant reactivity. (RH)

Field independence at preschool age (3 1/2 years) was tested and regressed on measures of 24 children's social and exploratory behaviors and on measures of maternal interaction behaviors during infancy and preschool. Children's exploratory behaviors' and mothers' behaviors were not predictive of cognitive style, but social behaviors were.…

Meta-analysis of the A-not-B error was conducted, using logistic regression, on studies conducted before September 1997. Results replicated earlier findings, with exception that the number of trials at the A location was a significant predictor, and the number of locations was a significant predictor of the proportion of infants who searched…

Examined contributions of cognitive processing speed, short-term memory capacity, and attention to infant visual recognition memory. Found that infants who showed better attention and faster processing had better recognition memory. Contributions of attention and processing speed were independent of one another and similar at all ages studied--5,…

Despite previous research indicating that early negative child behavior and the quality of parent-child relationships are predictive of later externalizing problems, few investigators have attempted to trace these antecedents back to infancy. In a sample of 100 infants from low-income families, infant persistence and maternal responsiveness were…

This study investigated the contributions of parent, infant, and contextual variables to the prediction of maternal ratings of infant temperament. Between the time when they gave birth and six months after the birth, 104 mothers completed measures of parenting attitudes, maternal anxiety and depression, family social support, demographic…