The current study represents the first longitudinal investigation of the potential effects of breastfeeding duration on maternal sensitivity over the following decade. This study also examined whether infant attachment security at 24 months would mediate longitudinal relations between breastfeeding duration and changes in maternal sensitivity over…

Sixty-five parent--infant dyads were observed reading an unfamiliar book at home. Parents' use of language-stimulating and emotionally rich reading styles was measured via a specially developed Book Sharing Scale for Infants. Aspects of child temperament were assessed by the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire [Bates, J. E., Freeland, C. A. B.,…

The study of infants' interactive style and social stress response to repeated stress exposures is of great interest for developmental and clinical psychologists. Stable maternal and dyadic behavior is critical to sustain infants' development of an adaptive social stress response, but the association between infants' interactive style and social…

The present study examined the effects of socioeconomic status (SES) and sibling differences in birth weight on sibling differences in the receipt of maternal sensitivity (i.e., differential parenting). It was hypothesized that sibling differences in birth weight would predict "absolute" differential parenting across the sibship (i.e.,…

Parental beliefs about play and learning are part of the "belief-context" of early childhood development and can thus make a key difference for the child. Previous studies have focused on cross-cultural comparisons, and therefore have neglected intra-cultural variations. This study sampled 163 Chinese mothers with children aged two to…

To evaluate which features of spoken language aid infant word learning, a corpus of infant-directed speech (M. R. Brent & J. M. Siskind, 2001) was characterized on several linguistic dimensions and statistically related to the infants' vocabulary outcomes word by word. Comprehension (at 12 and 15 months) and production (15 months) were…

Nolen-Hoeksema proposed that rumination increases stressful events and circumstances; however, few studies have examined this question. Thus, we explored whether (a) rumination predicted increases in the generation of chronic and acute stress, (b) excessive reassurance seeking (ERS) mediated links between rumination and stress generation, (c)…

Research Findings: The present study investigated the social and cognitive precursors of vocabulary knowledge in 239 Turkish preschoolers both concurrently (Time 1 [T1] Mage = 53.29 months, SD = 10.19) and subsequently 1 year later (Time 2 [T2] Mage = 65.40 months, SD = 10.55). We examined the role of parenting behaviors by focusing on emotional…

The present study investigated how changes in specific dimensions of the parent-adolescent relationship predict adolescent engagement in sexual intercourse and oral sex. Longitudinal data from 1,364 participants in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were gathered at…

This research aims to investigate the contributions of Turkish pre-school children's levels of positive/ conflicting relationships with their mothers and close/conflicting relationships with their teachers in predicting their adjustment to school. The sample of the study consists of 190 six-year-old children attending public pre-schools in Adana…

This research was conducted to investigate the forgiveness and subjective happiness level of university students in terms of gender, faculty, grade, residence, and parental attitudes, and to determine predictive role of forgiveness on subjective happiness. The study group consists of 828 university students (56.3% female, 43.7% male). The data was…

Very preterm birth (<32 weeks of gestation) heightens the risk for developmental and behavioral problems, but individual outcomes vary greatly. We evaluated whether mother-toddler dyadic interaction quality, assessed longitudinally at 14, 20, and 30 months (corrected), could account for unique variance in very preterm and full-term children's…

Why do many preterm children show delays in development? An integrated model of biological risk, children's capacities, and maternal stimulation was investigated in relation to cognitive functioning at toddler age. Participants were 200 Dutch children (gestational age = 32-41 weeks); 51% boys, 96% Dutch nationality, 71.5% highly educated mothers.…

This study explores the developmental change of mother-child interactions in order to investigate which aspects of maternal behavior affect children's speech production. To this end, the interactions between 79 German-speaking mothers and their two- or five-year-old children were observed at two time points (12 months apart) and in two interactive…

Objective of this study is to examine the correlation the quality of paternity, gender roles and communication skills of fathers. The scores in the scale of supporting developmental tasks were used in order to determine the quality of paternity. The other data collection tools were the BEM sex role inventory and the communication skills inventory.…