Infant Behavior & Development最新文献

{"title":"Caregivers’ vocabulary use for children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing during the first year of post-activation","authors":"Jongmin Jung ,&nbsp;Yuanyuan Wang ,&nbsp;Tonya Bergeson ,&nbsp;Derek Houston","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102176","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102176","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study compared caregivers' use of content words (common nouns, verbs, adjectives) in speech directed to young children with cochlear implants (CIs) and those with normal hearing (NH). Specifically, we examined potential group differences in caregivers' use of content words during the first year following CI activation. We analyzed free play interactions for three groups of 12 caregiver-child dyads: (1) caregivers of children with CIs (<em>mean</em> age at activation = 13.77 months, <em>SD</em> = 4.31), (2) caregivers of NH children matched by hearing experience to the CI group (NHE), and (3) caregivers of NH children matched by chronological age to the CI group (NCA). Interactions were recorded at 3, 6, and 12 months post-activation (or equivalent). Caregivers' speech was transcribed and coded to measure the number of words (tokens) and unique word forms (types) for each content word class. Linear mixed-effects models showed a marginally significant effect of group on word tokens. A significant difference in word types was found between the CI group and both NH groups. Caregivers of younger NH children used more tokens and types than caregivers of children with CIs. Children with NH experience more word tokens and greater word variety in caregiver speech compared to children with CIs during their first year of robust hearing. This richer input may benefit NH children’s language development, while children with CIs may experience different patterns of exposure to a variety of word types, reflecting their current developmental levels. Further research is needed to explore how caregiver speech affects language outcomes in children with CIs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"82 ","pages":"Article 102176"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145835189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Investigating parental scaffolding and visual experiences in toddlers with autism and high familial likelihood for later autism diagnosis: A head-mounted eye-tracker study","authors":"Elizabeth Perkovich ,&nbsp;Sarah Mire ,&nbsp;Hanako Yoshida","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102130","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102130","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Parents of autistic children often exhibit distinct interaction styles—such as increased gesturing and sustained focus on their child’s face—compared to parents of neurotypical children, yet the mechanisms driving these behaviors remain unclear. This study examined how parental social scaffolding behaviors influence attention in toddlers at elevated likelihood of autism (i.e., younger siblings of autistic children) and their neurotypical peers. Thirty-eight toddlers (19 per group), matched on age and sex, participated in a semi-naturalistic parent-child play session while wearing head-mounted eye-trackers. Despite no group differences in toddlers’ sustained or joint attention (SA, JA), parents showed distinct interaction patterns: parents of elevated-likelihood toddlers focused more objects, while neurotypical-group parents engaged in more object naming and face-directed attention. Across groups, parental object-looking predicted toddler JA, and object-handling predicted SA. However, the link between object-handling and JA only emerged in neurotypical toddlers, suggesting group-specific differences in how parental cues are integrated. These findings suggest that toddlers at elevated likelihood for autism show comparable attentional behaviors but receive qualitatively different social input. Parents may adjust their scaffolding strategies in response to subtle developmental cues before formal diagnosis. This study highlights the importance of considering developmental context in early social scaffolding and contributes to understanding how parental input shapes attention in diverse populations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102130"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144903546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The effectiveness of music on pain during heel blood collection in premature infants: A randomized controlled trial","authors":"Pınar Doğan ,&nbsp;Atiye Karakul ,&nbsp;Defne Engür ,&nbsp;Mehmet Yekta Öncel","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102157","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102157","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Newborns are exposed to pain during heel blood collection. The experience of pain in newborns can lead to both physiological and behavioral changes. The aim of this study was examine the effect of music (classical music and lullaby) on pain during the heel blood collection in premature infants. This single blind randomized controlled study was conducted between October, 2022 and April, 2023 in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at a university hospital. A total of 60 premature infants were randomly allocated to three groups: the Control Group, the Classical Music Group, and the Lullaby Group. Pain, oxygenation saturation levels, heart rate and respiratory rate were measured before, during, after the heel blood collection procedure. There were no statistically significant differences in the demographic data of the infants in the classical music, lullaby, and control groups. After heel blood collection procedure, pain levels, heart rate and respiratory rate of premature infants in the lullaby groups measurement were lower than the classical and control group. No significant difference was found in terms of oxygen saturation between the groups. In premature infants, in the lullaby group listening to during heel blood collection was more effective in reducing pain compared to the control group and classical music. This indicates lullaby can potentially be an effective method in alleviating pain during heel blood collection.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102157"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145318649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Infants’ attraction to infant vocalizations – A catalyst for infant development","authors":"Linda Polka ,&nbsp;M. Fernanda Alonso-Arteche ,&nbsp;Nicola K. Phillips ,&nbsp;Samin Moradi ,&nbsp;Lucie Ménard ,&nbsp;Matthew Masapollo","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102150","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102150","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Infant vocalizations play a key role in infant behavior and development, yet we know very little about how infants perceive speech signals with infant vocal properties. In this perspective paper, we summarize recent developmental studies capitalizing on technical breakthroughs in speech synthesis that have allowed for rigorous exploration of this topic. The findings indicate that infants prefer to listen to speech signals with vocal resonances that specify a small, infant-sized vocal tract; this preference is robust and distinct in some ways from infants’ attraction to infant-directed speech. This <em>infant talker bias</em> may support infants’ speech recognition skills and there is growing evidence that it is also tied to infants’ own emerging vocal production abilities. These findings further validate prominent views of speech development, including the articulatory filter and the analysis-by-synthesis hypotheses. Related work in our lab shows that adults also display a strong attraction to infant vowel sounds, adding weight to calls for an expanded and multimodal infant schema. Converging evidence that both infants and adults find infant vocalizations appealing also provides critical support for the fitness-signaling perspective on infant endogenous vocalization. We argue that the infant talker bias has a positive impact on multiple levels, shaping receptive, expressive, and motivational aspects of infant development. The infant talker bias also plays a central role in caregiving behaviors and infant-directed speech. The perceptual potency of infant speech is a catalyst for infant development and also for meaningful and innovative research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102150"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145118048","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neurodevelopmental trajectories of face processing in infants: A review and future directions","authors":"Katherine Meltzoff,&nbsp;Cameron A. Ryczek","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102132","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102132","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Face perception is integral for social development in infancy, and for skills such as joint attention, recognition, and emotion processing. This review synthesizes research findings over the past 25 years related to ERP biomarkers of face perception in infants. We review this literature as it relates to face perception in neurotypical infants and those at risk for, or diagnosed with, autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Future research may be able to utilize these neural signatures of face processing as ‘biomarkers’ to predict which infants are most likely to develop ASD, which is important for early diagnosis and intervention. The N290, P400, and Nc have all been highlighted as ERP components which relate to face processing. We discuss how nuances in these three components respond to face versus non-face stimuli and to emotional facial expressions in neurotypical (NT) infants. Evidence suggests that infants at high risk for ASD and those who go on to develop ASD have measurable differences in brain activity in response to faces compared to those at low risk and who do not go on to have ASD. Although differences in brain activity while viewing faces may not be observed between infants at high risk for ASD and those without at a single time point, longitudinal studies, studies with more varied stimuli, and studies utilizing source localization have uncovered differences. Finally, we present a novel hypothesis about developmental trajectories in both neurotypical children and those with ASD related to both face and non-face processing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102132"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144913513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Infant long-term memory: The last quarter century and the next","authors":"Kelsey Davinson ,&nbsp;Amy E. Learmonth ,&nbsp;Kimberly Cuevas","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102136","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102136","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Over the last quarter century, research on infant long-term memory has explored the complex, nuanced ways infants remember and how early memories shape interactions with the world. Pioneering investigations in the 1950s and 1960s revolutionized the study of infant cognition and memory. By 2000, foundational properties of infant memory were established via preferential looking, imitation, and operant conditioning paradigms. In the years since, research has advanced understanding of how infants encode, consolidate, and retrieve information across diverse situations. This body of work has revealed that infants possess memory capacities once thought to emerge later in development and that experience shapes both the duration and flexibility of memory. Systematic investigations of reminders have established the necessary and sufficient conditions for retrieval, emphasizing the roles of context, cue, and timing. Advances in behavioral and neuroimaging research, including sleep-based paradigms, have provided insights into memory consolidation during infancy. Recent studies have also broadened the scope of inquiry to include early learning and retention across various media, such as picture books, television, and touchscreens. However, debate continues regarding the nature of infant memory and whether different types of memory follow distinct developmental trajectories. This review outlines future research directions, including how intertwined learning, memory, and attention processes influence one another and are shaped by the dynamic and evolving niches that infants inhabit. Despite major progress, important questions remain unresolved, including the characterization and fate of our earliest memories.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102136"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145082060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Before first words: Infants’ ability to map words to goals","authors":"Youjung Choi ,&nbsp;Eun Young Kim ,&nbsp;Hyuna Lee ,&nbsp;Hyun-joo Song","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102154","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102154","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigated preverbal infants’ ability to associate novel words with referent objects. Forty-eight infants, aged 9 and 12 months, repeatedly observed an actor utter a novel word and then grasp one of two objects during the training trials. In the test trial, both age groups looked at the target object when she repeated the same word and directed their gaze to the non-target object when she uttered a different word. These results provide evidence that the foundations of novel word–object associations emerge before the onset of verbal communication.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102154"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145245692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Understanding early aggression: Empirically derived guidance on type, frequency, and severity in infants and toddlers","authors":"Tamara Del Vecchio ,&nbsp;Cassandra Cheeseman ,&nbsp;William Chaplin ,&nbsp;Amy M. Smith Slep","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102161","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102161","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Aggressive behavior in toddlers is a significant concern for parents and caregivers. Although aggressive behaviors commonly occur during early development, research suggests that early aggression, particularly when frequent, may signal risk for adverse developmental outcomes. Therefore, understanding how specific aggressive behaviors and their frequencies contribute to overall aggression severity warrants attention. In this study, we employed item response theory (IRT) to examine how both the type and frequency of reported aggressive behaviors relate to underlying (latent) aggression severity. Mothers of 4- to 24-month-old infants and toddlers (<em>n</em> = 874) reported the frequency of 10 physically aggressive behaviors using the Child Behavior Record (CBR). Most children displayed some form of aggression, with “pull hair” and “hit or smack” as the most frequently endorsed behaviors, whereas “hurt animals” was the least frequently endorsed behavior. IRT analyses revealed that “push or shove” was the best indicator for distinguishing toddlers with high and low underlying levels of aggression. For most behaviors, scores above the 95th percentile typically corresponded to high-frequency occurrence (most days to many times each day), whereas scores above the 68th percentile corresponded to lower frequency patterns (some days or higher). However, these thresholds varied by behavior type, with some behaviors (e.g., hurting animals) indicating higher severity even at low frequencies. The results of this investigation provide an empirically derived framework for understanding how both the type and frequency of aggressive behaviors relate to overall severity, potentially informing early identification and intervention strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102161"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145415916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The association of maternal parenting stress, responsive caregiving and social-emotional competence of children aged 12–36 months: Undirected and Bayesian network analyses","authors":"Fengyi Ren ,&nbsp;Chenying Yue ,&nbsp;Mengyu Bao ,&nbsp;Mengyao Qin ,&nbsp;Xin Liu ,&nbsp;Lei Sheng ,&nbsp;Xiaoyan Liu ,&nbsp;Jing Zhao ,&nbsp;Xinxia Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102162","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102162","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Maternal parenting stress and responsive caregiving are closely associated with social-emotional competence development in children. However, the underlying mechanisms during early childhood remain unclear. Moreover, a detailed map of these associations at the dimension level would be particularly useful for targeted interventions. In this study, information on social-emotional competence of children aged 12–36 months, maternal parenting stress and responsive caregiving was assessed using validated questionnaires completed by mothers (n = 408). Mediation analysis, undirected network analysis, and Bayesian network analysis were performed to examine the associations between maternal parenting stress, responsive caregiving and children’s social-emotional competence, at both variable and dimension levels. The results of undirected network analysis revealed that “promotion of cognitive and emotional development” dimension of responsive caregiving exhibited the highest centrality, while “responsiveness” and “promotion of cognitive and emotional development” of responsive caregiving, along with “mastery motivation” in children’s social-emotional competence were the key bridge nodes within the networks. Mediation analysis showed that responsive caregiving significantly mediated the association between parenting stress and children’s social-emotional competence. Consistently, Bayesian analysis showed that “parent-child dysfunctional interaction” of parenting stress had the highest predictive priority in the network, which could affect children’s social-emotional competence directly and indirectly through multidimensions of responsive caregiving. These findings highlight the complex relationships between parenting stress, responsive caregiving, and social-emotional competence development during early childhood, and provide evidence that “parent-child dysfunctional interaction” dimension in parenting stress, “promotion of cognitive and emotional development” dimension in responsive caregiving may serve as potential intervention targets to improve children’s development, which may have implications for early identification, screening and intervention.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102162"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145507666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A qualitative exploration of parents’ experiences of infant and toddler sleep and feeding during the United Kingdom COVID-19 lockdown(s)","authors":"Georgia Cook ,&nbsp;Anna Joyce ,&nbsp;Chris Robus ,&nbsp;Cristina Costantini","doi":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102134","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102134","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>COVID-19 restrictions had a significant impact on family life, including daily activities and routines. This study aimed to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s sleep and feeding behaviours, through undertaking reflexive thematic analysis of parents' open-text box responses to survey questions related to their child’s sleep and feeding practices during COVID-19 restrictions. Six hundred and ninety one parents of children aged 0–24 months old who were living in the United Kingdom completed an online questionnaire between 14th December 2020 and 15th January 2021. Results suggested that the pandemic resulted in specific contemporaneous changes to feeding and sleep practices. Specifically, for feeding there were positives around an extension to breastfeeding but this was alongside a negative perception of increased breastfeeding demand. For sleep practices, parents reported primarily negative implications of poorer child sleep and an increase in reactive bedsharing. Overall there were some positive implications on general practices which impacted both sleep and feeding, including providing the opportunity for parents to make beneficial adjustments such as to their routines. However, there were also clear negative implications around practical challenges and a lack of formal and informal help and support. This is the first study to explore the impact of the pandemic and its associated restrictions (which offered a unique snapshot in time, unable to be experimentally replicated) on infant and toddler sleeping and feeding practices. Findings have implications beyond the pandemic as they provide an illustration of the ways in which parents, if afforded with favourable circumstances such as additional time, flexibility, a reduction in perceived pressure and social stigma may seek to change their child’s sleeping and feeding practices. In addition, specific child sleep and feeding behaviours which parents struggled with and may benefit from additional help and support in a post-pandemic context to contribute to children’s development and well-being are highlighted.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48222,"journal":{"name":"Infant Behavior & Development","volume":"81 ","pages":"Article 102134"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145008561","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}