How do age and the acquisition of independent walking relate to changes in infants' everyday experiences? We used a novel ecological momentary assessment (EMA) method to gather caregiver reports of infants' restraint, body position, and object holding via text messages sparsely sampled across multiple days of home life at 10, 11, 12, and 13 months…

Learning to walk leads to an increase in language abilities; however, the underlying mechanisms accounting for this relation remain unclear. Investigating the quality of early gait control may offer some insights. The purpose of this study was to: (1) quantify how 13-month-olds (n = 39; 39% male) and 24-month-olds (n = 39; 59% male) adapt gait…

Spatial play in early childhood is associated with a variety of spatial and cognitive skills. However, these associations are often derived from studies in which different tasks are used across different age ranges, leaving open the question of how children's natural behaviors during spatial play develop from infancy into the early preschool…

Purpose: Infants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) produce fewer play actions and gestures than neurotypical infants (e.g., Mastrogiuseppe et al., 2015; Veness et al., 2012; Zwaigenbaum et al., 2005). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether different "types" of actions and gestures are more or less likely to develop…

This research examined the development of adaptive generalization in infants' object-directed actions. Infants ages 9 and 12 months participated in an object manipulation task with stimulus objects from 2 categories that differed in shape and weight and that bore a consistent shape or weight correspondence. Weight differences between…

During the first year of life, infants spend substantial amounts of time exploring objects they encounter in their daily environments. Perceptuo-motor information gained through these experiences provides a foundation for later developmental advances in cognition and language. This study aims to examine developmental trajectories of visual, oral,…

A hierarchical progression in infants' ability to use surface features, such as color, as a basis for object individuation in the first year has been well established (Tremoulet, Leslie, & Hall, 2000; Wilcox, 1999). There is evidence, however, that infants' sensitivity to surface features can be increased through multisensory (i.e.,…

Reaching and grasping skills have been described to emerge from a dynamic interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic factors. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the interaction between such an intrinsic factor, Down syndrome, and extrinsic factors, such as different object properties. Seven infants with Down syndrome and seven…

This study examined the relationship of crossing the midline while reaching for objects to the development of bimanual reaching among infants ages 12, 18, and 26 weeks. Findings indicated that the frequency of two-hand grabbing and the number of midline reaches increased with age; most midline reaches were part of two-handed reaches and occurred…

Discusses the development of the human hand from birth to age three as it contributes to the formation of human personality. Considers how parallels in eye, hand, brain, and motor skill development portray the evolving complexity and adaptation of the human grasp and illustrate Montessori theories about the relationship between physical experience…

Examined infants' ability to retrieve an object from atop a slightly larger object. Found that even 5-month-olds could retrieve objects close in size and fully contiguous with their bases when demands on reaching skill were reduced. Proposed that when they fail this task, it is because they lack the skill to reach the top object without…

An interaction analysis observation instrument, with categories found in the definition of "executive competence" by Wenar and related to R. White's effectance motivation, was used to observe 37 toddlers with their mothers. (SB)

Recent work on the development of the perceptual information-seeking function of the hand in relation to its motor-executive function is reviewed. (PCB)

Tested infants in their second year with a box task to determine whether they would show a hand preference in solutions involving complete differentiation of roles for the two hands. (HOD)