Challenging the Link Between Early Childhood Television Exposure and Later Attention Problems: A Multiverse Approach.

In 2004, Christakis and colleagues published findings that he and others used to argue for a link between early childhood television exposure and later attention problems, a claim that continues to be frequently promoted by the popular media. Using the same National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data set (N = 2,108), we conducted two multiverse analyses to examine whether the finding reported by Christakis and colleagues was robust to different analytic choices. We evaluated 848 models, including logistic regression models, linear regression models, and two forms of propensity-score analysis. If the claim were true, we would expect most of the justifiable analyses to produce significant results in the predicted direction. However, only 166 models (19.6%) yielded a statistically significant relationship, and most of these employed questionable analytic choices. We concluded that these data do not provide compelling evidence of a harmful effect of TV exposure on attention.

Infant effects on experimenter behavior.

The present study explored experimenters' looking behavior in a gaze-following task as a function of infant temperament. Two experienced female experimenters ran 62 15-month-olds through a six-trial gaze-following procedure in which infants were not distracted on the first three trials, but were distracted on the latter three trials by an Elmo video playing in the background. Although experimenters were trained to look at target objects for eight seconds per trial and were blind to infant temperamental status, both experimenters looked significantly longer during the non-distracted trials when infants were rated by their caregivers as high on effortful control or surgency. These results suggest that even experienced experimenters are susceptible to infant-driven influences. More importantly, these results highlight the importance of conceptualizing lab-based infant research involving human experimenters as, in Bronfenbrenner's (1977) terms, representing the totality of a functional social system that does not exclude the experimenters.

Cumulative Sociodemographic Risk Indicators for Difficult Child Temperament.

Cumulative risk models provide a convenient, parsimonious way to identify outcomes associated with multiple, highly correlated risk factors. In this paper, we explored linkages between a cumulative sociodemographic risk index, which included rurality status, and aspects of temperamental difficulty in an early school age sample of 53 school-aged children from Southcentral Appalachia. Cumulative risk was significantly predictive of temperamental difficulty, as defined by high negative affectivity and low effortful control, but post-hoc analyses revealed this association to be driven primarily by two of the eight risk indicators: rural status and income-to-needs risk. Although rurality status was highly correlated with income-to-needs risk, rurality predicted negative affectivity over and above income-to-needs risk and income-to-needs risk predicted effortful control over and above rurality status. Future models of cumulative risk may benefit from including rurality status as a risk indicator, despite high collinearity with income-to-needs risk.

Improving the accuracy of weight status assessment in infancy research.

Both researchers and primary care providers vary in their methods for assessing weight status in infants. The purpose of the present investigation was to compare standing-height-derived to recumbent-length-derived weight-for-length standardized (WLZ) scores, using the WHO growth curves, in a convenience sample of infants who visited the lab at 18 and 21 months of age. Fifty-eight primarily White, middle class infants (25 girls) from a semi-rural region of southern Appalachia visited the lab at 18 months, with 45 infants returning 3 months later. We found that recumbent-length-derived WLZ scores were significantly higher at 18 months than corresponding standing-height-derived WLZ scores. We also found that recumbent-length-derived WLZ scores, but not those derived from standing height measures, decreased significantly from 18 to 21 months. Although these differential results are attributable to the WHO database data entry syntax, which automatically corrects standing height measurements by adding 0.7 cm, they suggest that researchers proceed cautiously when using standing-height derived measures when calculating infant BMI z-scores. Our results suggest that for practical purposes, standing height measurements may be preferred, so long as they are entered into the WHO database as recumbent length measurements. We also encourage basic science infancy researchers to include BMI assessments as part of their routine assessment protocols, to serve as potential outcome measures for other basic science variables of theoretical interest.

Effects of Exogenous and Endogenous Distracters on Immediate and Long-Term Recall in Toddlers.

We explored the role that exogenous and endogenous competitors for attention play in infants' abilities to encode and retain information over a 6-month period. Sixty-six children visited the laboratory at 15 months, and 32 returned for a second visit at 21 months. Children observed models of conventional- relation and enabling-relation action sequences. Half the children were distracted by a "Mister Monkey" mechanical toy during the conventional-relation sequence, while the other half was distracted during the enabling-relation sequence. The Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire indexed endogenous factors at both ages. Immediate postmodel production of target actions indexed encoding efficiency, and 6-month production of target actions indexed long-term recall. The exogenous distracter impacted encoding efficiency (i.e., immediate recall), but not long-term recall. Endogenous factors (i.e., temperament) were primarily associated with long-term recall. Of special interest was our finding that endogenous factors, especially surgency, moderated the effect of the exogenous distracter. It appears that when learning conventional-relation sequences in the presence of exogenous distracters, surgency mobilizes attentional resources toward the learning objective; however, when learning enabling-relation sequences under the same conditions, surgency either boosts the saliency of the distracters or boosts children's susceptibility to them.

Joint effects of child temperament and maternal sensitivity on the development of childhood obesity.

The interplay between child characteristics and parenting is increasingly implicated as crucial to child health outcomes. This study assessed the joint effects of children's temperamental characteristics and maternal sensitivity on children's weight status. Data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were utilized. Infant temperament, assessed at child's age of 6 months by maternal report, was categorized into three types: easy, average, and difficult. Maternal sensitivity, assessed at child's age of 6 months by observing maternal behaviors during mother-child semi-structured interaction, was categorized into two groups: sensitive and insensitive. Children's height and weight were measured longitudinally from age 2 years to Grade 6, and body mass index (BMI) was calculated. BMI percentile was obtained based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's BMI charts. Children, who had a BMI ≥ the 85th percentile, were defined as overweight-or-obese. Generalized estimating equations were used to analyze the data. The proportions of children overweight-or-obese increased with age, 15.58% at 2 years old to 34.34% by Grade 6. The joint effects of children's temperament and maternal sensitivity on a child's body mass status depended on the child's age. For instance, children with difficult temperament and insensitive mothers had significantly higher risks for being overweight-or-obese during the school age phase but not during early childhood. Specific combinations of child temperament and maternal sensitivity were associated with the development of obesity during childhood. Findings may hold implications for childhood obesity prevention/intervention programs targeting parents.

Temperament moderates responsiveness to joint attention in 11-month-old infants.

The present study investigates the relationship between individual differences in children's temperament and their responsiveness to joint attention. Twenty-five 11-month-old children (12 girls and 13 boys) were presented with a gaze-following task in a laboratory setting, and parent reports of temperament were collected. Findings indicate that children's ability to correctly follow an experimenter's gaze differed as a function of individual temperament predispositions. Children high in perceptual sensitivity and negative affect engaged in relatively less frequent gaze-following, consistent with reports from previous research. However analysis of the dimension of orienting/effortful control produced an unexpected finding; that children low in effortful control were relatively more likely to respond to joint attentional bids. Overall, these findings are consistent with a view of temperament as a moderator of children's engagement in joint attention, and raise the possibility that joint attention may be a mechanism underlying previous reports of temperament-language relationships.

Temperamental and Joint Attentional Predictors of Language Development.

Individual differences in child temperament have been associated with individual differences in language development. Similarly, relationships have been reported between early nonverbal social communication (joint attention) and both temperament and language. The present study examined whether individual differences in joint attention might mediate temperament-language relationships. Temperament, language, and joint attention were assessed in 51 21-month-olds. Results indicated an inverse relationship between aspects of temperamental difficulty, including low executive control and high negative affect, and language development. Temperamental aspects of negative affect were also inversely predictive of joint attention. However, the utility of a model in which joint attention mediates the relationship between temperament and language during the second year was not supported.

Marshmallows used as saliva stimulant do not affect cortisol concentrations: finally a palatable alternative for toddler saliva collection.

Two studies were conducted to validate marshmallows as a saliva stimulant for use with toddlers. First, cortisol concentrations from 14 subjects (ages 6-46 years) were compared using three saliva collection methods: (1) plain cotton dental roll, (2) dental roll with one mini-marshmallow, and (3) expectorating into a collection tube using no cotton or stimulant. EIA was used for analyses. There were no significant differences among cortisol concentrations. Second, saliva collection compliance rate was compared for 21-month-olds (n = 51) using either flavored drink crystal- (compliance rate = 16.7%) or marshmallow-flavored (compliance rate = 60%) dental rolls for saliva collection (chi(2) (1) = 4.02, p = .045). These studies indicate that marshmallow is a viable option for saliva stimulation to determine toddler cortisol concentrations using EIA.

TouchStat v. 3.00: a new and improved Monte Carlo adjunct for the sequential touching task.

The sequential-touching procedure is employed by researchers studying nonlinguistic categorization in toddlers. TouchStat 3.00 is introduced in this article as an adjunct to the sequential-touching procedure, allowing researchers to compare children's actual touching behavior to what might be expected by chance. Advantages over the Thomas and Dahlin (2000) framework include ease of use, and fewer assumptive limitations. Improvements over TouchStat 1.00 include calculation of chance probabilities for multiple "special cases" and for immediate intercategory alternations. A new feature for calculating mean run length is also included.

Temperament, distraction, and learning in toddlerhood.

The word- and nonword-learning abilities of toddlers were tested under various conditions of environmental distraction, and evaluated with respect to children's temperamental attentional focus. Thirty-nine children and their mothers visited the lab at child age 21-months, where children were exposed to fast-mapping word-learning trials and nonlinguistic sequential learning trials. It was found that both word- and nonword-learning were adversely affected by the presentation of environmental distractions. But it was also found that the effect of the distractions sometimes depended on children's level of attentional focus. Specifically, children high in attentional focus were less affected by environmental distractions than children low in attentional focus when attempting to learn from a model, whereas children low in attentional focus demonstrated little learning from the model. Translationally, these results may be of use to child health-care providers investigating possible sources of cognitive and language delay.

"Shhh! We're tryin' to concentrate": attention and environmental distracters in novel word learning.

The authors' purpose in this study was to evaluate the role of attention, as a central dimension of temperament, in children's real-time acquisition of novel vocabulary. Environmental distractions were administered to 47 22-month-old children as they acquired novel vocabulary in a fast-mapping task. Two distraction conditions impeded novel word acquisition, but only 1 impeded attention allocation. Attention allocation was correlated with novel word acquisition under conditions of distraction, but not in their absence. Results suggest that attention allocation is especially important for word learning under conditions of distraction. Given that in their day-to-day lives children often encounter new words amid a host of environmental distractions, children with constitutionally fewer attentional resources, such as temperamentally difficult children, may be at a vocabulary-learning disadvantage.