The ethos behind provision of early intervention programmes to infants and young children with additional support needs has been established for some time (e.g. Right-from-the-Start), but targeting the development of typically developing infants has been a relatively recent phenomenon. Baby sign is one of the many intervention techniques…

To what extent do toddlers have shared vocabularies? We examined CDI data collected from 14,607 infants and toddlers in five countries and measured the amount of variability between individual lexicons during development for both comprehension and production. Early lexicons are highly overlapping. However, beyond 100 words, toddlers share more…

The aim of this study was to examine the association of breastfeeding practices with the growth trajectories of children's cognitive development. We used data from the Child Development Supplement (CDS) of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) with variables on presence and duration of breastfeeding and standardized test scores obtained…

Statistical learning may be central to lexical and grammatical development. The phonological and distributional properties of words provide probabilistic cues to their grammatical and semantic properties. Infants can capitalize on such probabilistic cues to learn grammatical patterns in listening tasks. However, infants often struggle to learn…

Unlike adult memories that can be remembered for many years, memories that are formed early in life are more fragile and susceptible to being forgotten (a phenomenon known as "infantile" or "childhood" amnesia). Nonetheless, decades of research in both humans and nonhuman animals demonstrate the importance of early life…

Evaluating individuals based on their pro- and anti-social behaviors is fundamental to successful human interaction. Recent research suggests that even preverbal infants engage in social evaluation; however, it remains an open question whether infants' judgments are driven uniquely by an analysis of the mental states that motivate others' helpful…

A head-mounted camera was used to measure head direction. The camera was mounted to the forehead of 20 6- and 20 12-month-old infants while they watched an object held at 11 horizontal (-80° to + 80°) and 9 vertical (-48° to + 50°) positions. The results showed that the head always moved less than required to be on target. Below 30° in the…

The period covering the first 3 months of life consists of a series of pivotal, life-changing transitions for the infant, for the parents, and for the emerging parent-child relationship. The Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) system is a relationship-based tool that offers individualized information to parents about their baby's communication…

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) is an umbrella term that describes a variety of conditions characterized by a pattern of atypical facial features, growth restriction, structural physical abnormalities, and brain dysfunction resulting from prenatal alcohol exposure. Studies suggest that the prevalence of FASDs ranges between 2-5% (of the…

This study examines whether parental report of social-communicative and repetitive behaviors at 12 months can be helpful in identifying autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in younger siblings of children with ASD [high-risk (HR)-siblings]. Parents of HR-siblings and infants without a family history of ASD completed the First Year Inventory at…

To achieve language proficiency, infants must find the building blocks of speech and master the rules governing their legal combinations. However, these problems are linked: words are also built according to rules. Here, we explored early morphosyntactic sensitivity by testing when and how infants could find either words or within-word structure…

Infants, toddlers, and young children have unique needs when separated from their primary caregivers because of child abuse and neglect. Parents of these children often have their own histories of abuse and neglect and can benefit from assessments and interventions that bear in mind the effect caregiving histories have on present parenting. This…

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effects of the Sense-Based Science Education Program on 60-66 months old children's scientific process skills. Research Methods: In this study, which carries experimental attribute features, the pre-test/final-test/observing-test control grouped experimental pattern, and qualitative research were used.…

Research about infants' capacity to communicate using cries, smiles and sophisticated emotional strategies to connect with adults in their lives has predominantly emerged from the field of developmental psychology, with relatively limited attention to how babies enact such communicative practices with key adults in naturalistic settings. This…

Given the dependent nature of parent-infant interactions necessary for language development, it is important to understand how context may influence these interactions. This study examines how contextual variables influence communicative, cognitive and social measures of parent-infant interactions. Specifically, how do feedback toys and…