Research over the past three decades has shown that early intervention in infants biologically at risk of developmental disorders, irrespective of the presence of a brain lesion, is associated with improved cognitive development in early childhood without affecting motor development. However, at present it is unknown whether early intervention is…

Recent research suggests that witnessing events of fission (e.g., the splitting of a solid object) impairs human infants', human adults', and non-human primates' object representations. The present studies investigated the reactions of gorillas and orangutans to cohesion violation across different types of fission events implementing a behavioral…

Executive functions play an important role in cognitive development, and during the preschool years especially, children's performance is limited in tasks that demand flexibility in their behavior. We asked whether preschoolers would exhibit limitations when they are required to apply a general rule in the context of novel stimuli on every trial…

A number of studies have suggested breastfed infants have improved bonding and attachment or cognitive development outcomes. However, mechanisms by which these differences might develop are poorly understood. We used maternal time use data to examine whether exclusively breastfeeding mothers spend more time in close interactive behaviors with…

Recent studies reveal early and wide gaps in cognitive and oral language skills--whether gauged in English or Spanish--among Latino children relative to White peers. Yet, other work reports robust child health and social development, even among children of Mexican American immigrants raised in poor households, the so-called "immigrant…

This paper investigates the role of static and dynamic attributes for the animate-inanimate distinction in category-based reasoning of 7-month-olds. Three experiments tested infants' responses to movement events involving an unfamiliar animal and a ball. When either the animal or the ball showed self-initiated irregular movements (Experiment 1),…

The consequences of prenatal maternal stress for development were examined in 125 full-term infants at 3, 6, and 12 months of age. Maternal cortisol and psychological state were evaluated 5 times during pregnancy. Exposure to elevated concentrations of cortisol early in gestation was associated with a slower rate of development over the 1st year…

Three experiments demonstrate that biological movement facilitates young infants' recognition of the whole human form. A body discrimination task was used in which 6-, 9-, and 12-month-old infants were habituated to typical human bodies and then shown scrambled human bodies at the test. Recovery of interest to the scrambled bodies was observed in…

This book contains a wealth of practical and specific activities and materials to use with infants and toddlers to enhance growth and development. Writing in the accessible style that her readers appreciate, Ann Lewin-Benham looks at current research from the neurosciences to show what teachers and childcare providers can do with very young…

The study investigates the preschool readiness of moderately preterm children and, in particular, the likely presence of learning disabilities at preschool age. Its theoretical model detects linguistic comprehension and expression; memory-related metacognition and cognition skills; orientation and motor coordination skills; premathematics and…

We present a domain-general framework called "constrained attentional associative learning" to provide a developmental account for how and when infants form concepts for animates and inanimates that encapsulate not only their surface appearance but also their movement characteristics. Six simulations with the same general-purpose architecture…

A controversial issue in the field of language development is whether language emergence and growth is dependent solely on processes specifically tied to language or could also depend on basic cognitive processes that affect all aspects of cognitive competence (domain-general processes). The present article examines this issue using a large…

This article describes the development of number concepts between infancy and early childhood. It is based on a diary study that tracked number word use in a child from 12 to 38 months of age. Number words appeared early in the child's vocabulary, but accurate reference to specific numerosities evolved gradually over the entire 27-month period.…

The present research examined whether 5- to 6.5-month-old infants would hold different expectations about various physical events involving a box after receiving evidence that it was either inert or self-propelled. Infants were surprised if the inert but not the self-propelled box: reversed direction spontaneously (Experiment 1); remained…

After questioning the practical significance of evidence that parenting influences brain development--while highlighting the scientific importance of such work for understanding "how" family experience shapes human development--this paper reviews evidence suggesting that brain structure and function are "chiselled" by parenting. Although the…