Maternal avoidance, anxiety cognitions and interactive behaviour predicts infant development at 12 months in the context of anxiety disorders in the postpartum period.

BACKGROUND: Few studies have examined the relation between anxiety disorders in the postpartum period and cognitive as well as language development in infancy. AIMS: This longitudinal study investigated whether anxiety disorder in the postpartum period is linked to infant development at twelve months. A closer look was also taken at a possible link between maternal interaction and infant development. STUDY DESIGN: Subjects were videotaped during a Face-to-Face-Still-Face interaction with their infant (M = 4.0 months). Specific maternal anxiety symptoms were measured by self-report questionnaires (Anxiety Cognition Questionnaire (ACQ), Body Sensations Questionnaire (BSQ), Mobility Inventory (MI)) to check for a connection with infant development. The Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-III (Bayley-III) were used to assess infant language and cognitive development at one year of age. SUBJECTS: n = 34 mothers with anxiety disorder (SCID-I; DSM-IV) and n = 47 healthy mothers with their infant. OUTCOME MEASURES: Infant performance on Bayley-III language and cognitive scales. RESULTS: Infants of mothers with anxiety disorder yielded significantly lower language scores than infants of controls. No significant group differences were found regarding infant cognitive development. Exploratory analyses revealed the vital role of "maternal avoidance accompanied" in infant language and cognitive development. Maternal neutral engagement, which lacks positive affect and vocalisations, turned out as the strongest negative predictor of cognitive development. Maternal anxiety cognitions and joint activity in mother-infant interaction were the strongest predictors of infant language performance. CONCLUSIONS: Results underline the importance to also consider the interaction behaviour of women with anxiety disorders to prevent adverse infant development.

Early differentiation within the animate domain: are humans something special?

This report investigates whether preverbal infants distinguish between humans and mammals within the animate domain. In Experiment 1, 3 groups, aged 7, 9, and 11 months (N = 58), participated in an object-examination task. Infants were presented with 10 different three-dimensional toy models from one category (humans or mammals), followed by an exemplar from the other category. All groups habituated to the familiarization stimuli and dishabituated to the out-of-category item. In Experiment 2, 2 groups of infants, aged 5 and 7 months (N = 40), participated in a familiarization-novelty preference task. Four pairs of color photos of objects from the same category were presented twice, and then infants received a test pair that included one new object from the already-familiar category and one out-of-category item. Infants habituated only to humans, and 7-month-olds, but not 5-month-olds, dishabituated to the out-of-category exemplar. Implications for the development of categorical thinking during the first year of life are discussed.

Children's analogical reasoning about natural phenomena.

This report investigates children's analogical reasoning in a physics task, using an analogy generated by the children rather than by the experimenter. A total of 127 elementary school children took part in three related studies. Children learned to predict the behavior of a balance scale. Later, they were asked to solve a force interaction problem. Two versions of the balance scale training were devised: version A suggested an incorrect solution to the target problem (negative analogy), and version B suggested a correct solution to the target problem (positive analogy). In Study 1, 9- to 10-year-olds showed spontaneous transfer in both training conditions. In Study 2, 7-year-olds did not show any transfer in the positive analogy condition. Study 3 revealed that the lack of transfer in younger children was not due to a failure either to notice the analogy or to perform the mapping. Instead, 7-year-olds transferred only selected aspects of the correct solution.

Children's reasoning about the interaction of forces.

In order to acquire an advanced understanding of movements caused by more than one physical force, children must learn to combine force vectors. Former studies suggest that children consider information on only one aspect (direction or amount) of both vectors. Two experiments tested this hypothesis. A total of 160 elementary school children and 31 adults judged the effect of two forces pulling at one object simultaneously. Participants had to predict the direction of the resulting force under different experimental conditions. In line with previous findings, most children took into account either the direction or the amount of both forces. Their preferred solution varied with the nature of the vector problem and the context of the task. Performance generally improved with age.

[Categorization in infancy: differentiation of global object classes]. / Kategorisierung im Säuglingsalter: die Unterscheidung globaler Objektklassen.

Two studies tested whether preverbal children distinguish global categories (animal and furniture) on a conceptual basis. A total of 59 eleven-month-olds solved an object examination task. During habituation, infants freely explored different natural-looking toy models from the same category. In Study 1, the same series of four different examplars was presented twice. In Study 2, ten different exemplares were presented. In both cases, a significant habituation effect could be observed. When a perceptually new object of the same category was presented on the first test trial after habituation, a significant increase in examination time from the last habituation trial to the first test trial could be observed in Study 1. When a new object of the contrasting category was presented on the second test trial, examination times increased significantly from the first to the second test trial in both studies. These results support earlier findings suggesting that preverbal infants are able to distinguish global categories on a conceptual basis.