Recent work with human infants and toddlers suggests a dissociation between performance on looking and reaching tasks. Specifically, infants appear to generate accurate representations of occluded objects and their actions when tested in expectancy violation looking tasks but often fail to use this information when reaching for occluded objects.…

Most research on object individuation in infants has focused on the visual domain. Yet the problem of object individuation is not unique to the visual system, but shared by other sensory modalities. This research examined 4.5-month-old infants' capacity to use auditory information to individuate objects. Infants were presented with events in which…

Detection of novelty is an important cognitive ability early in development, when infants must learn a great deal about their world. Work with adults has identified networks of brain areas involved in novelty detection; this study investigated electro-physiological correlates of detection of novelty and recognition of familiarity in 9-month-old…

Three experiments directly compared infants' categorization in variations of the visual familiarization task. In each experiment, 4- or 6-month-old infants were familiarized with a collection of dogs or cats and then their response to novel dogs and cats was assessed. In Experiment 1, 4-month-old infants responded to the exclusive distinction of…

The effect of prior otitis media with effusion (OME) or current middle ear effusion (MEE) on phonetic perception was examined by testing infants' discrimination of "boo" and "goo" syllables in 2 test sessions. Middle ear function was assessed following each perception test using tympanometry. Perceptual performance was compared…

Current work has yielded differential findings regarding infants' ability to perceptually detect the causal structure of a means-end support sequence. Resolving this debate has important implications for perception-action dissociations in this domain of object knowledge. In Study 1, 12-month-old infants' ability to perceive the causal structure of…

This article discusses a way to boost babies' skills by taking advantage of rhythm and rhyme. Becoming aware of rhyming sounds boosts brain activity and a child's early literacy ability. Adding singsong rhyming words to requests for attention is an effective way for teachers to get toddlers to listen to what they say. Rhymes and rhythms add zest…

Prosodic information, such as word stress and speech rhythm, is important in language acquisition, and sensitivity to stress patterns is present from birth onwards. Exposure to prosodic properties of the native language occurs prenatally. Preterm birth and an associated lack of exposure to prosodic information are suspected to affect language…

The use of gaze shifts as social cues has various evolutionary advantages. To investigate the developmental processes of this ability, we conducted an object-choice task by using longitudinal methods with infant chimpanzees tested from 8 months old until 3 years old. The experimenter used one of six gestures towards a cup concealing food; tapping,…

Using a sample of resident fathers in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (9-month Father Study), this study examined how father involvement is associated with infant cognitive outcomes in two domains (babbling and exploring objects with a purpose). Results from a series of logistic regression models indicate that varied aspects of…

The study examined the properties of the Screening Tool for Autism in Two-Year-Olds (STAT) for children under 24 months. The STAT provides a standard context for observing social-communicative behavior in play, imitation, and communication. Seventy-one children received the STAT between 12 and 23 months of age and a follow-up diagnostic evaluation…

Cultural variation in durations, relations, and contingencies of mother-infant person- and object-directed behaviors were examined for 121 nonmigrant Latino mother-infant dyads in South America, Latina immigrants from South America and their infants living in the United States, and European American mother-infant dyads. Nonmigrant Latina mothers…

Findings from two research syntheses of the relationship between caregiver sensitivity and secure infant attachment and one research synthesis of factors associated with increased caregiver use of a sensitive interactional style are presented. The main focus of analysis was the extent to which different measures of caregiver contingent social…

The authors examined the relation of the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory (B. M. Caldwell & R. H. Bradley, 1984) for 0- to 6-year-old Sundanese Indonesian children with the quality of the mother-child attachment relationship (n = 44) and attachment-related behaviors during play interactions (n = 37) and with…

This study draws data from the Family Life Project to examine parenting behaviors observed for 105 mothers and grandmothers raising an infant in rural low-income multigenerational households. Multilevel models are used to examine the relationships between maternal age and psychological distress and parenting of the infant by both generations. The…