Comparison of U.S. and Tajik infants' time in containment devices.

How infants are held or contained throughout the day shape infants' experiences, particularly around movement and exploration. In Tajikistan, caregivers use "gahvora" cradles, which severely restrict the body and limbs. The present study explored the variability and use of containment devices in U.S. and Tajik infants. Using time diaries, we compared 12-month-olds in the U.S. and Tajikistan on the types of containments used and time spent in them throughout the day. During the day, Tajik infants accumulated more time in gahvoras than infants in the U.S. spent in cribs, primarily used for sleep, suggesting gahvoras served other functions. Given the availability of other devices, U.S. infants' time was distributed in short yet frequent bouts across devices. Accumulated time in these containments matched accumulated time Tajik infants spent in gahvoras. Tajik infants accumulated more unrestricted time on the ground, which was distributed in prolonged bouts, than U.S. infants. Findings highlight differences in infants' everyday experiences during the developmental period when motor skills emerge. By embracing commonalities and exploring differences between cultures, this study offers insights into differences in infants' everyday experiences and opportunities for movement.

The influence of siblings on ethnically diverse children's gender typing across early development.

Most U.S. children grow up with siblings. Theory and prior work suggest that older siblings are important sources of gender-related information and socialization. However, few studies have investigated the patterns of these associations longitudinally across early childhood. The present study examines the influence of sibling presence and gender composition on the trajectory of early gender-typed behavior and appearance in children from age 2 through 6 in a diverse sample of Dominican American (36%), African American (33%), and Mexican American (31%) mother-child dyads (N = 232; 112 girls, 120 boys) from low-income households in New York City (M = $20,459, SD = 14,632). Results found that children without older siblings spent more time playing with counterstereotypical toys and their mothers' reports indicated similar behavior over the past month (e.g., a girl playing with toy vehicles and balls; a boy playing with toy kitchen sets and dolls) than children with older siblings. Further, children with at least one other-gender sibling (e.g., a girl with an older brother) played more frequently with counterstereotypical toys compared with children with only same-gender siblings (e.g., a girl with only older sisters). Results on the relation between siblings and gender appearance were mixed. Older siblings may thus influence early trajectories of important gender domains (e.g., toy play), which can have various long-term implications for developing skills and interests. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Impact of Default Options for Parent Participation in an Early Language Intervention.

In this study we tested, via a randomized control study design, different enrollment options for a scaled city-wide text-based early learning program among 405 mothers who were receiving newborn home visiting services. We found that when automatically enrolled with a voluntary option to opt out, 88.7 percent of mothers in the experimental group stayed in the program and continued to receive the text-based content over the course of 26 weeks. In contrast, only 1 percent of mothers in the control group who heard about the text-based program through conventional recruitment flyers voluntarily enrolled in the program. Opt-out and opt-in patterns did not differ by characteristics typically considered as interfering with program participation: low income status, first-time motherhood status, total number of children, maternal language, flagging for depressive symptoms, and household residential instability. Findings suggest that automatic enrollment might be an effective engagement strategy for text- and similar digitally-based early childhood programs.

Do, say, learn: the functions of mothers' speech to infants.

We examined the functions of mothers' speech to infants during two tasks - book-sharing and bead-stringing - in low-income, ethnically diverse families. Mexican, Dominican, and African American mothers and their infants were video-recorded sharing wordless books and toy beads in the home when infants were aged 1;2 and 2;0. Mothers' utterances were classified into seven categories (labels/descriptions, emotion/state language, attention directives, action directives, prohibitions, questions, and vocal elicitations) which were grouped into three broad language functions: referential language, regulatory language, and vocalization prompts. Mothers' ethnicity, years of education, years living in the United States, and infant sex and age related to mothers' language functions. Dominican and Mexican mothers were more likely to use regulatory language than were African American mothers, and African American mothers were more likely to use vocalization prompts than were Latina mothers. Vocalization prompts and referential language increased with mothers' education and Latina mothers' years living in the United States. Finally, mothers of boys used more regulatory language than did mothers of girls. Socio-cultural and developmental contexts shape the pragmatics of mothers' language to infants.

The cultural context of infant development: Variability, specificity, and universality.

Researchers in developmental science often examine parenting and child development by ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups, frequently highlighting group differences in parent and infant behaviors. A sole focus on differences, however, obscures notable variability that exists within each community. Moreover, categories such as ethnicity and race are often assumed to encompass shared cultural backgrounds, which risks conflating race, ethnicity, and culture in psychological research. In this chapter, we examine cultural specificity and within-group heterogeneity that characterizes parenting and child development across socio-economic, ethnic, and racial groups. Drawing upon our work on ethnically and socioeconomically diverse parents and infants, we document the between-group differences, within-group variation, and universal processes in the form and content of parent-infant interactions. Most centrally, we highlight the role of family economic, human, and social capital in explaining the variability in parent-infant interactions across racial, ethnic, and cultural groups.

Routine Language: Speech Directed to Infants During Home Activities.

Everyday activities are replete with contextual cues for infants to exploit in the service of learning words. Nelson's (1985) script theory guided the hypothesis that infants participate in a set of predictable activities over the course of a day that provide them with opportunities to hear unique language functions and forms. Mothers and their firstborn 13-month-old infants (N = 40) were video-recorded during everyday activities at home. Transcriptions and coding of mothers' speech to infants-time-locked to activities of feeding, grooming, booksharing, object play, and transition-revealed that the amount, diversity, pragmatic functions, and semantic content of maternal language systematically differed by activity. The activities of everyday life shape language inputs to infants in ways that highlight word meaning.

Power in methods: language to infants in structured and naturalistic contexts.

Methods can powerfully affect conclusions about infant experiences and learning. Data from naturalistic observations may paint a very different picture of learning and development from those based on structured tasks, as illustrated in studies of infant walking, object permanence, intention understanding, and so forth. Using language as a model system, we compared the speech of 40 mothers to their 13-month-old infants during structured play and naturalistic home routines. The contrasting methods yielded unique portrayals of infant language experiences, while simultaneously underscoring cross-situational correspondence at an individual level. Infants experienced substantially more total words and different words per minute during structured play than they did during naturalistic routines. Language input during structured play was consistently dense from minute to minute, whereas language during naturalistic routines showed striking fluctuations interspersed with silence. Despite these differences, infants' language experiences during structured play mirrored the peak language interactions infants experienced during naturalistic routines, and correlations between language inputs in the two conditions were strong. The implications of developmental methods for documenting the nature of experiences and individual differences are discussed.

Children's vocabulary growth in English and Spanish across early development and associations with school readiness skills.

In line with evidence that variation in children's vocabulary size facilitates learning, we asked whether growth in Mexican and Dominican children's expressive vocabularies in English and/or Spanish would predict later cognitive skills. Children and mothers were video-recorded sharing wordless books at 2, 3, 4, and 5 years, and children were assessed on language, literacy, and math skills at 5 years. Growth in children's English and Spanish vocabularies, based on transcriptions of booksharing interactions, predicted specific cognitive skills and was associated with changes to mothers' language use across time. Mothers' years in the United States predicted children's English vocabulary growth.