This investigation examined the time course and sequence of prelinguistic vocal development during the first year of cochlear implant (CI) experience. Thirteen children who were implanted between 8 and 35 months and 11 typically developing (TD) infants participated in this longitudinal study. Adult-child play interactions were video- and…

Toys that provoke the use of both hands are required to develop a test of bimanual performance in children 8-18 months with unilateral cerebral palsy (Mini-AHA). To choose the toys, a conceptual model based on perception-action theory and object use was used to guide a literature review. Evidence was sought for three critical relationships…

Previous behavioural research suggests that infants possess phonologically detailed representations of the vowels and consonants in familiar words. These tasks examine infants' sensitivity to mispronunciations of a target label in the presence of a target and distracter image. Sensitivity to the mispronunciation may, therefore, be contaminated by…

The Parents Interacting With Infants (PIWI) intervention is designed to support parents in developing their capacity to create positive, sensitive, and engaging interactions with their infants and toddlers. These interactions, as indicated by research, are essential for healthy brain development and overall well-being, yet they are particularly…

Becoming a mother in a foreign land can be challenging and demanding for immigrant women and their families, and also for the professionals who support these families. In addition to the typical demands associated with raising a newborn, mothers who are immigrants confront other issues that professionals must keep in mind: a unique understanding…

A rich tradition in developmental psychology explores physical reasoning in infancy. However, no research to date has investigated whether infants can reason about physical objects that behave probabilistically, rather than deterministically. Physical events are often quite variable, in that similar-looking objects can be placed in similar…

In this article, the author synthesizes research from several disciplines to shed light on play's central role in healthy development. Gordon builds on research in attachment theory that correlates secure attachment in infancy with adult well-being to demonstrate how playfulness might be a lifelong outcome of secure attachment and a primary…

Background: This exploratory study examines the relationship between stress and caregiver sensitivity among non-parental childcare centre staff who attend Chilean daycare centres serving low-income children between 12- and 24-months-old. Method: Participants were 23 childcare providers (nine teachers and 14 childcare technicians) who were…

F[subscript 0]-based acoustic measures were extracted from a brief, sentence-final target word spoken during structured play interactions between mothers and their 3- to 14-month-old infants and were analyzed based on demographic variables and DSM-IV Axis-I clinical diagnoses and their common modifiers. F[subscript 0] range (?F[subscript 0]) was…

The infant-parent class offers the school's first opportunity for a prepared environment and utilizes observation as an important tool for parents. Purposeful work is given to both parents and their young children. Montessori principles, such as teaching sensitive periods for language and movement, convey one activity at a time for bringing…

The U.S. is the only industrialized nation in the world without a paid leave policy for parents at or around the birth of a child. Prenatal care in the U.S. remains expensive, while virtually all other industrialized countries provide free or affordable prenatal care. While families in the U.S. pay about 80 percent of the direct cost of child care…

Lexical categories like noun and verb are foundational to language acquisition, but these categories do not come neatly packaged for the infant language learner. Some have proposed that infants can begin to solve this problem by tracking the frequent nonadjacent word (or morpheme) contexts of these categories. However, nonadjacent relationships…

Socio-emotional development is increasingly recognised as playing a central role in children's academic achievement. However, little is known about the socio-emotional development of language-minority children on entry to school and how these children fare in comparison to their language-majority peers. To address this gap, longitudinal data on…

Little is known about outcomes of early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder reared in bilingual homes. There are concerns that social communication deficits among children with autism spectrum disorder may reduce the developmental benefits of early intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder raised in bilingual…

Using the structure of the group well-child visit model, the St. Luke's Interdisciplinary Group Well Child (IGWC) model integrates primary care and mental health, recognizing the power and importance of dyadic and family relationships in the first years of life. The pilot of this model attempted to harness the "port of entry" afforded…