Infants are born highly sensitive to the natural patterns found in languages. They use their perceptual sensitivity to acquire detailed information about the structure of languages in their environment. To date, most studies of infant perception and early language acquisition have investigated spoken/auditory languages and hearing infants (e.g.…

This is a randomized controlled experimental, sequential explanatory mixed-methods study that evaluated the effectiveness of an early childhood mental health professional development program, Caring with Caring, that was offered to early childhood educators working with infants and toddlers in a licensed group early childhood care and education…

American parents and policymakers are failing to acknowledge the significant links between early childhood literacy and academic success. This experimental study investigated the effects of daily reading with 150 infants between the ages of 14 to 28 months throughout a 28-day period. Participants from all economic, demographic, and ethnic…

In neurotypical infants, genetically-specified attachment/attention mechanisms underpin the motivation to interact, which enables the acquisition of socio-cultural norms for language and accounts for the efficacy of socialization processes (Lee et al., 2009; Schumann, 2013). In children with autism, as in second language acquisition,…

Parents of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more likely to experience high parental stress compared to other parents, and social support has been identified in previous research as an effective buffer against stress. However, limited research has evaluated the associations between different types of social support and stress…

In diglossic contexts, when speakers typically use two different languages on a regular basis, bilingual speakers display a wide array of attitudes towards each of their languages and associated cultures (Galindo, 1995) and such variability in attitudes can affect their linguistic behaviors (Lambert, Hodgson, Gardner & Fillenbaum, 1960).…

It has been widely shown that infants and adults are capable of using only prosodic information to discriminate between languages. However, it remains unclear which aspects of prosody, either rhythm or intonation, listeners attend to for language discrimination. Previous researchers have suggested that rhythm, the duration and timing of speech…

This study examined indigenous infants, children, and youth in rural central Mexico for developmental delays by using a mixed methods approach. A two-person team consisting of a researcher and a translator completed this study. They conducted observations of 665 minors and interviews with their caregivers. A self-designed rubric was the guide to…

This study focused on the psychosocial aspects of cleft lip and/or palate on maternal emotional reactions and the family, with emphasis on the effect on the maternal-infant bond. Interviews were conducted with 40 mothers of 1-year-old infants with non-syndromic cleft lip and/or palate. The interviews were analyzed using the phenomenological…