Early mother-infant coordinated interactions play a critical role in infant development. The present study describes the development of the dyadic coordination of vocalization and gaze behavior between mothers and infants over the first year of life. In addition to describing developmental trajectories of behavior, the study contributes to our…

This study presents Norwegian ECEC staff members' thinking on "quality of interaction." Open-ended interviews were analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis based on the Caregiver Interaction Profile scales. Findings are that ECEC staff members include both basic "care" aspects of interaction and "educational"…

The core aspect within process quality is quality of interactions between caregivers and children. This article investigates six interaction skills of caregivers in ECEC groups for toddlers in Norway using the Caregiver Interaction Profile (CIP) scales. The participants are 110 teachers and 58 assistants in 111 toddler groups. Results show that…

Purpose: This study tested proposals that maternal verbal responses shape infant vocal development, proposals based in part on evidence that infants modified their vocalizations to match mothers' experimentally manipulated vowel or consonant-vowel responses to most (i.e., 70%-80%) infant vocalizations. We tested the proposal in ordinary rather…

Human newborns are cognitively and socially competent. Although they are sensitive to the presence of a social partner, little is known on the emergence of the ability to partake in social interaction. In this study we aimed to explore the roots of turn-taking in the neonatal period. We wished to highlight the way mothers' and newborns'…

Natural disasters are disruptive to families and communities, particularly when cascading effects continue over time. Such events, and ensuing disruptions to family life, present risks to young children's development, including oral language. Recognition of this potential vulnerability has led to calls for early childhood programming to support…

Measures of young children's social development are needed in the Multi-Tier System of Supports (MTSS) approach to early childhood. In 2004, we reported initial development of an observational measure of infants' and toddlers' social skills designed for early educators, the Early Social Indicator (ESI). Here, we report preliminary findings on the…

Measures of young children's social development are needed in the MultiTier System of Supports (MTSS) approach to early childhood. In 2004, we reported initial development of an observational measure of infants' and toddlers' social skills designed for early educators, the Early Social Indicator (ESI). Here, we report preliminary findings on the…

The lexicon of 6-month-olds is comprised of names and body part words. Unlike names, body part words do not often occur in isolation in the input. This presents a puzzle: How have infants been able to pull out these words from the continuous stream of speech at such a young age? We hypothesize that caregivers' interactions directed at and on…

This study examined Pathways Early Autism Intervention, a community-based, parent-mediated, intensive behavioral and developmental intervention program for children with autism spectrum disorders that could be used as a model for state-funded early intervention programs. A single-subject, multiple-baseline, across-participants design was used.…

Research Findings: The objective of this research was to evaluate the effectiveness of Incredible Years Basic Parent Training (IYPT Basic) in a community clinic setting in Hong Kong. IYPT Basic is a Western program developed to promote children's academic, social, and emotional regulation skills and to reduce conduct problems among typically…

This case study examines the role of playful talk in negotiating the "how" of collaborative group work in a 6th-grade science classroom. Here we develop and test a Vygotsky-derived hypothesis that postulates playful talk as a mechanism for identity exploration and group status negotiation. Our findings indicate that students utilized the…

This study investigates vocal imitation of prosodic contour in ongoing spontaneous interaction with 10- to 13-week-old infants. Audio recordings from naturalistic interactions between 20 mothers and infants were analyzed using a vocalization coding system that extracted the pitch and duration of individual vocalizations. Using these data, the…

This longitudinal and naturalistic study aims to describe basic aspects of early imitative exchanges in dyadic infant-grandfather and infant-grandmother free interactions, from the second to the 10th month of age. Sixteen infants were video-recorded at home in the course of spontaneous dyadic interactions with maternal grandfathers and…

This paper provides an overview of one aspect of a research project to investigate the contribution of the television program "Play School" to the health and wellbeing of young Australian children. The research question for this aspect of the study was: How do young children respond to the various elements and segments of "Play…