Children's Utilization of Toys is Moderated by Age-Appropriateness, Toy Category, and Child Age.

Play during childhood is essential to growth and learning. Little is known about whether categories of toys moderate play behaviors at different ages, or how children interact with toys that are simple, appropriate, or complex for their developmental level. Two hundred and forty-three children between the ages of 1 and 8 years, divided into four age groups, played with toys that were targeted to their age group as well as toys aimed at one age group younger and older. Toys fell into nine different categories. Whether children fully utilized each toy was evaluated. Analyses examined how children's utilization of toys was affected by the age-appropriateness of the toy, the category of toy, and the child's age. Considering all age groups and toys, children were less likely to fully utilize toys targeted toward older children than age-appropriate toys, but this effect was moderated by the toy category and the child's age.

Retrospective Report Revisited: Long-Term Recall in European American Mothers Moderated by Developmental Domain, Child Age, Person, and Metric of Agreement.

Retrospective parental reports are common in the developmental science literature, but their validity has been questioned. We investigated the consistency of retrospective maternal recall by comparing original with retrospective maternal reports in three domains (maternal cognitions, mother-reported child and mother behaviors, and observed child and mother behaviors) at three retention intervals (12, 14, and 15 years) in two metrics (individual standing and group level). In a longitudinal study, European American mothers (N=46) provided data when their children were 5, 20, and 48 months of age and retrospective recall data for each age when their children were 16 years. Overall, mothers recalled similar average mean levels (49% of variables explored) or better mean levels (41% of variables) retrospectively; better levels indicating a positive recollection bias. At least moderate consistency in relative standing was evident for 52% of variables. Still, the findings varied somewhat by domain, child age, and person. Retrospective parental reports can provide accurate accounts of the past, but should be used with caution, as their consistency varies and is specific to moderating factors.

Child, Mother, Father, and Teacher Beliefs About Child Academic Competence: Predicting Math and Reading Performance in European American Adolescents.

Beliefs about child competence in math and reading have important implications for academic performance in adolescence. However, it is unclear whether children's own beliefs are the most important predictor of their academic performance or whether parents' and teachers' beliefs about child competence influence child academic performance. We assessed mothers', fathers', teachers', and children's beliefs about European American children's (N = 189) competence in math and reading at age 10 and children's math and language performance at ages 10, 13, and 18 years. Confirmatory factor models demonstrated that children's and teachers' beliefs had lower loadings on a latent variable of child competence in math and reading than mothers' beliefs. Children's self-competence beliefs in math and reading were not significantly correlated, suggesting children may use dimensional comparisons when assessing their own competence. Mothers', fathers', and teachers' assessments of child competence in math were strongly correlated with their assessments of child competence in reading. Controlling for stability in academic performance, family socioeconomic status, and other reporters, mothers and fathers who rated their children's math competence higher had adolescents who performed better in math, and fathers who rated their children's reading competence higher had adolescents who performed better in language tasks. However, children who rated their own competence higher in math and reading had lower math and language (for girls only) performance in adolescence. European American children may use dimensional comparisons that render them poorer judges of their math and reading competence than parents.

Mother-infant interactions with firstborns and secondborns: A within-family study of European Americans.

Given the large numbers of families with more than one child, understanding similarities and differences in siblings' behaviors and in parents' interactions with their sibling infants is an important goal for advancing more representative developmental science. This study employed a within-family design to examine mean-level consistency and individual-order agreement in 5-month-old sibling behaviors and maternal parenting practices with their firstborns and secondborns (ns = 61 mothers and 122 infants). Each infant was seen independently with mother. Firstborn infants were more social with their mothers and engaged in more exploration with objects than secondborn infants; firstborn and secondborn infants' behaviors were correlated for smiling, distress communication, and efficiency of exploration. Mothers engaged in more physical encouragement, social exchange, didactic interaction, material provisioning, and language with their firstborns than with their secondborns. Notably, only maternal nurturing (e.g., feeding, holding) did not differ in mean level when mothers were with their two infants. However, mean differences in mothers' social exchange and material provisioning with their two children attenuated to nonsignificance when controlling for differences in siblings' behaviors. Individual-order agreement of mothers' behaviors with firstborn and secondborn infants (across an average of almost 3 years) was only moderate. These findings suggest that mother-firstborn interactions may differ from mother-secondborn interactions. Future research should move beyond studying mother-firstborn dyads to understand broader family and developmental processes.

Continuity, Stability, and Concordance of Socioemotional Functioning in Mothers and their Sibling Children.

This within-family longitudinal study accomplishes a novel multivariate assessment of socioemotional parenting cognitions and practices in mothers and their sibling children's socioemotional behaviors. Mothers participated with their 20-month-old firstborns and again, an average of 3 years later, with their 20-month-old secondborns (55 families, 165 participants). Continuity and stability in maternal cognitions and practices between the two times, and similarities, differences, and correspondences in siblings' behaviors, are assessed and compared. Maternal socioemotional parenting cognitions were continuous in mean level and stable in individual differences across siblings; maternal socioemotional practices were continuous in mean level but unstable in individual differences. Firstborns were more sociable and emotionally available to mothers than secondborns; first- and secondborns' socioemotional behaviors were largely unrelated. This study contributes to understanding socioemotional domains of parenting and child development, birth order effects, and the shared and nonshared contexts of siblings' environments within the family.

Parenting cognitions → parenting practices → child adjustment? The standard model.

In a large-scale (N = 317) prospective 8-year longitudinal multiage, multidomain, multivariate, multisource study, we tested a conservative three-term model linking parenting cognitions in toddlerhood to parenting practices in preschool to classroom externalizing behavior in middle childhood, controlling for earlier parenting practices and child externalizing behavior. Mothers who were more knowledgeable, satisfied, and attributed successes in their parenting to themselves when their toddlers were 20 months of age engaged in increased supportive parenting during joint activity tasks 2 years later when their children were 4 years of age, and 6 years after that their 10-year-olds were rated by teachers as having fewer classroom externalizing behavior problems. This developmental cascade of a "standard model" of parenting applied equally to families with girls and boys, and the cascade from parenting attributions to supportive parenting to child externalizing behavior obtained independent of 12 child, parent, and family covariates. Conceptualizing socialization in terms of cascades helps to identify points of effective intervention.

Human infancy and parenting in global perspective: specificity.

We address three long-standing fundamental questions about early human development and parental caregiving within a specificity framework using data from 796 infant-mother dyads from 11 societies worldwide. Adopting a cross-society view opens a vista on universal biological origins of, and contextual influences on, infant behaviours and parenting practices. We asked: how do infant behaviours and parenting practices vary across societies? How do infant behaviours relate to other infant behaviours, and how do parent practices relate to other parent practices? Are infant behaviours and parent practices related to one another? Behaviours of firstborn five-month infants and parenting practices of their mothers were microanalysed from videorecords of extensive naturally occurring interactions in the home. In accord with behavioural specificity, biological expectations and cultural influences, we find that infants and mothers from diverse societies exhibit mean-level society differences in their behaviours and practices; domains of infant behaviours generally do not cohere, nor do domains of maternal practices; and only specific infant behaviours and mother practices correspond. Few relations were moderated by society.

Neurobiology of culturally common maternal responses to infant cry.

This report coordinates assessments of five types of behavioral responses in new mothers to their own infants' cries with neurobiological responses in new mothers to their own infants' cries and in experienced mothers and inexperienced nonmothers to infant cries and other emotional and control sounds. We found that 684 new primipara mothers in 11 countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, France, Kenya, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the United States) preferentially responded to their infants' vocalizing distress by picking up and holding and by talking to their infants, as opposed to displaying affection, distracting, or nurturing. Complementary functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses of brain responses to their own infants' cries in 43 new primipara US mothers revealed enhanced activity in concordant brain territories linked to the intention to move and to speak, to process auditory stimulation, and to caregive [supplementary motor area (SMA), inferior frontal regions, superior temporal regions, midbrain, and striatum]. Further, fMRI brain responses to infant cries in 50 Chinese and Italian mothers replicated, extended, and, through parcellation, refined the results. Brains of inexperienced nonmothers activated differently. Culturally common responses to own infant cry coupled with corresponding fMRI findings to own infant and to generic infant cries identified specific, common, and automatic caregiving reactions in mothers to infant vocal expressions of distress and point to their putative neurobiological bases. Candidate behaviors embedded in the nervous systems of human caregivers lie at the intersection of evolutionary biology and developmental cultural psychology.

Cognitive Abilities, Social Adaptation, and Externalizing Behavior Problems in Childhood and Adolescence: Specific Cascade Effects Across Development.

Children's and adolescents' cognitive abilities, social adaptation, and externalizing behaviors are broadly associated with each other at the bivariate level; however, the direction, ordering, and uniqueness of these associations have yet to be identified. Developmental cascade models are particularly well-suited to (1) discern unique pathways among psychological domains and (2) model stability in and covariation among constructs, allowing for conservative tests of longitudinal associations. The current study aimed to identify specific cascade effects among children's cognitive abilities, social adaptation, and externalizing behaviors, beginning in preschool and extending through adolescence. Children (46.2 % female) and mothers (N = 351 families) provided data when children were 4, 10, and 14 years old. Cascade effects highlighted significant stability in these domains. Unique longitudinal associations were identified between (1) age-10 cognitive abilities and age-14 social adaptation, (2) age-4 social adaptation and age-10 externalizing behavior, and (3) age-10 externalizing behavior and age-14 social adaptation. These findings suggest that children's social adaptation in preschool and externalizing behavior in middle childhood may be ideal intervention targets to enhance adolescent well-being.

Emotional interactions in European American mother-infant firstborn and secondborn dyads: A within-family study.

The developmental science literature is riven with respect to (a) parental similar versus different treatment of siblings and (b) sibling similarities and differences. Most methodologies in the field are flawed or confounded. To address these issues, this study employed a within-family longitudinal design to examine developmental processes of continuity and stability in emotional interactions in mothers with their firstborn and secondborn 5-month-old infants (ns = 61 mothers and 122 infants). As independently rated by the Emotional Availability Scales, mothers' observed and coded behavioral expressions of sensitivity, structuring, nonintrusiveness, and nonhostility were consistent in group mean levels between firstborns and secondborns and (largely) between daughters and sons. Neither firstborns and secondborns, nor girls and boys, differed in their responsiveness or involvement of mother. However, mothers' emotional interactions with their firstborn and secondborn children were uncorrelated, as were firstborn and secondborn infants' interactions with their mother. These group-mean consistencies and individual-differences inconsistencies in emotional interactions are discussed in relation to the shared and nonshared lives of siblings in the same family. (PsycINFO Database Record

Infant-Mother and Infant-Caregiver Emotional Relationships: Process Analyses of Interactions in Three Contemporary Childcare Arrangements.

Emotional relationships in infant-mother dyads in families where mothers provided full-time (MC) childcare were compared with those of families where mothers used in-home childcare (IHC) providers and family childcare (FCC) providers (N = 245). Infant relationships with childcare providers were also studied. Emotional relationships were adequate in all 3 childcare arrangements, but infant-mother dyads in IHC arrangements displayed healthier emotional relationships than infant-mother dyads in MC arrangements; no differences in the health of emotional relationships with infants emerged among the three types of childcare providers (MC, IHC, FCC). Infant-mother dyads in IHC arrangements also displayed healthier emotional relationships than infant-IHC caregiver dyads, but infant-mother and infant-caregiver dyads were comparable in FCC families. Emotional relationships in infant-mother and infant-caregiver dyads were not correlated, regardless of the type of childcare.

Mother-Infant Contingent Vocalizations in 11 Countries.

Mother-infant vocal interactions serve multiple functions in child development, but it remains unclear whether key features of these interactions are community-common or community-specific. We examined rates, interrelations, and contingencies of vocal interactions in 684 mothers and their 5½-month-old infants in diverse communities in 11 countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Cameroon, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, and the United States). Rates of mothers' and infants' vocalizations varied widely across communities and were uncorrelated. However, collapsing the data across communities, we found that mothers' vocalizations to infants were contingent on the offset of the infants' nondistress vocalizing, infants' vocalizations were contingent on the offset of their mothers' vocalizing, and maternal and infant contingencies were significantly correlated. These findings point to the beginnings of dyadic conversational turn taking. Despite broad differences in the overall talkativeness of mothers and infants, maternal and infant contingent vocal responsiveness is found across communities, supporting essential functions of turn taking in early-childhood socialization.

Adoptive and Nonadoptive Mother-Child Behavioral Interaction: A Comparative Study at 4 Years of Age.

Comparable samples of low-risk adopted and nonadopted children and mothers were observed during 3 tasks at age 4 years. Quality of mother-child interactions, child level of functioning in 4 domains, and maternal parenting satisfaction and social support were assessed. Adopted children were as competent as nonadopted children on measures of developmental functioning. Both groups of mothers expressed high satisfaction and support as parents. However, ratings of child, maternal, and dyadic behavior when interacting were all lower for adoptive dyads than for nonadoptive dyads, and adoptive dyads with boys accounted for the maternal and dyadic group differences.

Stability of core language skill from early childhood to adolescence: a latent variable approach.

This four-wave prospective longitudinal study evaluated stability of language in 324 children from early childhood to adolescence. Structural equation modeling supported loadings of multiple age-appropriate multisource measures of child language on single-factor core language skills at 20 months and 4, 10, and 14 years. Large stability coefficients (standardized indirect effect = .46) were obtained between language latent variables from early childhood to adolescence even when accounting for child nonverbal intelligence and social competence and maternal verbal intelligence, education, speech, and social desirability. Stability coefficients were similar for girls and boys. Stability of core language skill was stronger from 4 to 10 to 14 years than from 20 months to 4 years, so early intervention to improve lagging language is recommended.

Physically developed and exploratory young infants contribute to their own long-term academic achievement.

A developmental cascade defines a longitudinal relation in which one psychological characteristic uniquely affects another psychological characteristic later in time, separately from other intrapersonal and extrapersonal factors. Here, we report results of a large-scale (N = 374), normative, prospective, 14-year longitudinal, multivariate, multisource, controlled study of a developmental cascade from infant motor-exploratory competence at 5 months to adolescent academic achievement at 14 years, through conceptually related and age-appropriate measures of psychometric intelligence at 4 and 10 years and academic achievement at 10 years. This developmental cascade applied equally to girls and boys and was independent of children's behavioral adjustment and social competence; mothers' supportive caregiving, verbal intelligence, education, and parenting knowledge; and the material home environment. Infants who were more motorically mature and who explored more actively at 5 months of age achieved higher academic levels as 14-year-olds.

Language and internalizing and externalizing behavioral adjustment: developmental pathways from childhood to adolescence.

Two independent prospective longitudinal studies that cumulatively spanned the age interval from 4 years to 14 years used multiwave designs to investigate developmental associations between language and behavioral adjustment (internalizing and externalizing behavior problems). Altogether 224 children, their mothers, and teachers provided data. Series of nested path analysis models were used to determine the most parsimonious and plausible paths among the three constructs over and above stability in each across age and their covariation at each age. In both studies, children with poorer language skills in early childhood had more internalizing behavior problems in later childhood and in early adolescence. These developmental paths between language and behavioral adjustment held after taking into consideration children's nonverbal intellectual functioning, maternal verbal intelligence, education, parenting knowledge, and social desirability bias, as well as family socioeconomic status, and they applied equally to girls and boys.

Developmental Pathways among Adaptive Functioning and Externalizing and Internalizing Behavioral Problems: Cascades from Childhood into Adolescence.

A developmental cascade describes a longitudinal cross-domain unique relation. Here, a 3-wave multivariate design and developmental cascade analysis were used to investigate pathways among adaptive functioning and externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems in a community sample of 134 children seen at 4, 10, and 14 years. Children, mothers, and teachers provided data. Nested path analytic models tested the plausible cascades among the three domains apart from their covariation at each age and rank-order stability across age. Adaptive functioning in early adolescence was predicted by early childhood adaptive functioning and externalizing behavioral problems, with both effects mediated by late childhood adaptive functioning and internalizing behavioral problems; externalizing behavioral problems in early adolescence were predicted by early childhood internalizing behavioral problems with the effect mediated by late childhood externalizing behavioral problems. These developmental cascades obtained independent of child intelligence; child age and maternal education and social desirability were also considered but were not related to any outcome variables. The findings suggest that strategically timed and targeted interventions designed to address young children's behavioral problems may return investment in terms of an enhanced epidemiology of adaptively functioning teens.

Modalities of infant-mother interaction in Japanese, Japanese American immigrant, and European American dyads.

Cultural variation in relations and moment-to-moment contingencies of infant-mother person-oriented and object-oriented interactions were compared in 118 Japanese, Japanese American immigrant, and European American dyads with 5.5-month-olds. Infant and mother person-oriented behaviors were related in all cultural groups, but infant and mother object-oriented behaviors were related only among European Americans. Infant and mother behaviors within each modality were mutually contingent in all groups. Culture moderated lead-lag relations: Japanese infants were more likely than their mothers to respond in object-oriented interactions; European American mothers were more likely than their infants to respond in person-oriented interactions. Japanese American dyads behaved like European American dyads. Interactions, infant effects, and parent socialization findings are set in cultural and accultural models of infant-mother transactions.

Mother-infant socioemotional contingent responding in families by adoption and birth.

Contingencies of three maternal and two infant socioemotional behaviors that are universal components of mother-infant interaction were investigated at 5 months in 62 mothers (31 who had adopted domestically and 31 who had given birth) and their first children (16 males in each group). Patterns of contingent responding were largely comparable in dyads by adoption and birth, although the two groups of mothers responded differentially to the two types of infant signals. Mothers in both groups were more responsive than infants in social and vocal interactions, but infants were more responsive in maternal speech-infant attention interactions. Family type × gender statistical interactions suggested a possible differential role of infant gender in establishing mother-infant contingencies in families by adoption and birth.

Emotional relationships between mothers and infants: knowns, unknowns, and unknown unknowns.

An overview of the literature pertaining to the construct of emotional availability is presented, illustrated by a sampling of relevant studies. Methodological, statistical, and conceptual problems in the existing corpus of research are discussed, and suggestions for improving future investigations of this important construct are offered.