The degree to which infants' current actions are influenced by previous action is fundamental to our understanding of early social and cognitive competence. In this study, we found that infant gazing manifested notable temporal dependencies during interaction with mother even when controlling for mother behaviors. The durations of infant gazes at…

The aim of this study was to examine the combined influences of infants' attention and use of social cues in the prediction of their language outcomes. This longitudinal study measured infants' visual attention on a distractibility task (11 months), joint attention (14 months), and language outcomes (word-object association, 14 months; MBCDI…

In a socially diverse sample of 206 infant-mother pairs, we investigated predictors of infants' attachment security at 15 months, with a particular emphasis on mothers' tendency to comment appropriately or in a non-attuned manner on their 8-month-olds' internal states (so-called mind-mindedness). Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed…

The present study investigated temporal associations between putative emotion regulation strategies and negative affect in 20-month-old toddlers. Toddlers' parent-focused, self-distraction, and toy-focused strategies, as well as negative affect, were rated on a second-by-second basis during laboratory parent-toddler interactions. Longitudinal…

Effortful control (EC) refers to the ability to inhibit a dominant response to perform a subdominant one and has been shown as protective against a myriad of difficulties. Research examining precursors of EC has been limited to date, and in this study, infancy contributors to toddler EC were examined. Specifically, parent/family background…

The aim of this study was to investigate the relations between pregnancy and childbirth factors and subsequent quality of maternal interactive behavior in a sample of 116 full-term infants and their mothers. Mothers reported on the conditions of childbirth when infants were 6-8 months of age, and their interactive behavior was observed during a…

The hypothesis that aspects of current mother-infant interactions predict an infant's response to maternal infant-directed speech (IDS) was tested. Relative to infants of nondepressed mothers, those of depressed mothers acquired weaker voice-face associations in response to their own mothers' IDS in a conditioned-attention paradigm, although this…

This study examined the association between prenatal exposure to cocaine and physiological regulation across the first 7 months of age. Measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) were obtained from 169 (82 cocaine-exposed and 87 nonexposed) infants during baseline periods at 1 month and 7 months of age and during tasks designed to elicit…

Infant symbolic play was examined in relation to prenatal alcohol exposure and socioenvironmental background and to predict which infants met criteria for fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) at 5 years. A total of 107 Cape-Colored, South African infants born to heavy drinking mothers and abstainers/light drinkers were recruited prenatally. Complexity of…

Research has identified associations between indicators of social disadvantage and the presence of child sleep problems. We examined the longitudinal development of infant sleep in families experiencing high (n = 58) or low (n = 64) levels of psychosocial adversity, and the contributions of neonatal self-regulatory capacities and maternal settling…

This study investigates individual differences in the contribution of specific maternal regulatory behaviors to the mother-infant dyad's regulation of infant distress response. Additionally, we examined the stability of infants' stress responses and the stability of specific maternal soothing behaviors. The sample included 128 mother-infant dyads…

Toddler toy play evolves in a predictable manner and provides a valid, nonverbal measure of cognitive function unbiased by social behaviors. Research on prenatal maternal stress (PNMS) indicates that exposure to stress in utero results in developmental deficits. We hypothesized that children exposed to high objective PNMS from a natural disaster…

Predictors of prenatal and postnatal parenting efficacy were examined in a sample of 115 primiparous mothers and 73 fathers in an effort to examine the association between preexisting parental characteristics and prenatal efficacy and the association between prenatal characteristics and postnatal efficacy when aspects of the current parenting…

Men's childhood experiences with their parents, their current relationship with their partners, and demographic factors were examined in relation to father-infant interactions. Participants were 60 racially and ethnically diverse, inner-city men and their 6- to 11-month-old infants. Father-infant interactions were videotaped during semistructured…