Carlos Cristi-Montero, Juan Pablo Espinoza-Puelles, Divyangana Rakesh
{"title":"Canonical Association of Socioeconomic Factors on Cognitive and Academic Achievement in Chilean Adolescents-The Cogni-Action Project.","authors":"Carlos Cristi-Montero, Juan Pablo Espinoza-Puelles, Divyangana Rakesh","doi":"10.1111/desc.70225","DOIUrl":"10.1111/desc.70225","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with adolescents' cognitive and academic outcomes, yet most research has focused on household SES in high-income countries. This study examined linear and canonical associations between family- and school-level disadvantage and cognitive-academic performance in 1296 Chilean adolescents (aged 10-14). Linear mixed models estimated associations between SES and continuous cognitive and academic scores, while canonical correlation analysis (CCA) characterized multivariate SES-cognition-achievement patterns. Findings showed that attending schools with a mid- or low School Vulnerability Index (SVI) was associated with higher scores in memory and problem solving (β = 4.3-7.4), whereas SVI was not related to grades; in contrast, parental university education and higher household income were linked to higher cognitive scores (β = 2.9-5.0) and better grades across subjects (β = 0.12-0.45). CCA identified two globally significant covariation modes. The first mode (r = 0.40) captured a broad socioeconomic dimension, driven primarily by family income and parental education, which correlated with generalized cognitive and academic performance. A second mode (r = 0.25) captured secondary variance in selected academic subjects and inhibitory control. However, individual SES indicators did not reach statistical significance on this component. These findings suggest a shared socioeconomic gradient driven predominantly by family resources underlies adolescent cognitive and academic outcomes. Alongside this global trend, school vulnerability is primarily linked to specific cognitive functions and family socioeconomic status is pervasively associated with academic achievement. Mitigating educational disparities would therefore benefit from multi-level policies targeting both environments. SUMMARY: A shared socioeconomic gradient driven by family resources underlies adolescent cognitive and academic outcomes. School vulnerability associates specifically with targeted cognitive functions. Family socioeconomic status pervasively associates with broad academic achievement. Effective mitigation of educational disparities involves targeting both home and school contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"29 4","pages":"e70225"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147965242","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Laurel Perkins, Yuanfan Ying, Alexander Williams, Jeffrey Lidz
{"title":"Representations of Nonlocal Syntactic Dependencies Feed Verb Learning in Infancy.","authors":"Laurel Perkins, Yuanfan Ying, Alexander Williams, Jeffrey Lidz","doi":"10.1111/desc.70207","DOIUrl":"10.1111/desc.70207","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The ability to represent both local and nonlocal syntactic dependencies emerges in an infant's second year of life, raising questions about how these early syntactic representations interact with language learning in other domains. Using wh-questions as our case study, we investigate how infants' syntactic dependency acquisition interacts with their early lexical development. Prior work finds that 18-month-olds represent fronted wh-phrases as nonlocal arguments in object wh-questions with known verbs. Here, we show that 19-21-month-olds (range: 18;29-21;26) do the same when interpreting unknown verbs. We introduce a novel Violation of Fit method, a cross-modal extension of the Violation of Expectations paradigm. Infants saw dialogues with novel verbs in object wh-questions (e.g., What is the girl gonna gorp?), transitive polar questions (Is the girl gonna gorp the toy?), or intransitive polar questions (Is the girl gonna gorp?). At test, infants viewed a causal event (e.g., a girl knocks over a tower), and we measured their attention as an indication of whether they considered the verbs to be a good fit for this type of event. Across the age range, we found that infants who heard wh-question dialogues attended similarly to the test events as infants who heard canonical transitive dialogues, and unlike infants who heard intransitive dialogues. Thus, 19-21-month-olds treat object wh-questions with a novel verb as transitive when relating them to scenes. This suggests that immediately after wh-dependency representations are first acquired, they are available to feed verb learning. SUMMARY: We find that 19-21-month-olds represent wh-phrases (e.g., what) as nonlocal objects in wh-questions with unknown verbs (e.g., What is the girl gonna gorp?). We introduce a novel experimental paradigm, Violation of Fit, which measures how well an infant considers a particular sentence to fit with a particular scene. This test reveals that infants treat object wh-questions with a novel verb as transitive, and therefore a good fit to a causal event. This suggests that immediately after wh-dependency representations are first acquired, they are available to feed verb learning.</p>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"29 4","pages":"e70207"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13164832/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147876099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrea Sander-Montant, Laia Fibla, Hilary Killam, Krista Byers-Heinlein
{"title":"Keeping an Eye on Looking Measures: Towards More Robust Developmental Methods.","authors":"Andrea Sander-Montant, Laia Fibla, Hilary Killam, Krista Byers-Heinlein","doi":"10.1111/desc.70228","DOIUrl":"10.1111/desc.70228","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A persistent challenge in experimental developmental psychology is determining which of many possible outcome measures best captures underlying behaviors and processes. In the looking-while-listening paradigm for studying early word comprehension, researchers have developed more than 12 distinct outcome measures, but have limited empirical basis for choosing between them. Using archival data from 15 datasets (N = 602 children, 12-60 months), we evaluated these measures' psychometric properties. We found that: (1) proportion looking, reaction time, and proportion of trials switching from distractor to target, demonstrated the strongest validity, robustness (experimental effect size), and reliability; and (2) the paradigm captures two distinct cognitive processes-detecting mismatches and confirming matches-with distractor-initial trials showing stronger developmental sensitivity. This work provides both specific recommendations for word comprehension research and a reproducible framework for evaluating measurement approaches in experimental developmental science. SUMMARY: A challenge in experimental developmental psychology is the proliferation of outcome measures for the same construct, without psychometric information to adjudicate between measures. We investigated the validity, robustness (effect size), and reliability of 12 distinct outcome measures for the looking-while-listening task, across 15 datasets collected from 602 infants. Proportion looking, reaction time, and proportion of trials switching from distractor to target were the most psychometrically sound outcome measures. Distractor-initial trials showed greater developmental sensitivity than target-initial trials. Through these two trial types, looking-while-listening captures two distinct cognitive processes: detecting mismatches and confirming matches.</p>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"29 4","pages":"e70228"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148044274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Chloe Richmond, Lucy Parrett, Elizabeth Tye, Carina C J M de Klerk
{"title":"Two Weeks of Mirror Exposure Enhances Sensorimotor Cortex Activation but not Facial Mimicry in 4-Month-old Infants.","authors":"Chloe Richmond, Lucy Parrett, Elizabeth Tye, Carina C J M de Klerk","doi":"10.1111/desc.70221","DOIUrl":"10.1111/desc.70221","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study aimed to test the causal role of sensorimotor experience in the development of facial mimicry. We systematically manipulated 4-month-old infants' experience with their own facial actions, and measured the effect on their sensorimotor cortex activation and facial mimicry when they observed others' facial actions. Infants in the mirror condition received two weeks of daily sensorimotor experience with their own facial actions via a toy mirror, while infants in the control condition played with the same toy without the mirror for the same amount of time. Before and after this experience, we measured infants' facial mimicry using electromyography (EMG) and their sensorimotor cortex activation using electroencephalography (EEG) while they observed videos of other infants' facial actions. As predicted, infants in the mirror condition showed a greater increase in sensorimotor cortex activation during the observation of other infants' facial actions than infants in the control condition. However, this greater neural activation did not translate into a greater increase in facial mimicry in the mirror group. These findings suggest that although the neural processing of others' facial actions was enhanced as a result of the sensorimotor training, longer training periods may be necessary for this to lead to greater facial mimicry. SUMMARY: We investigated the role of sensorimotor experience in infant facial mimicry by assigning infants to either a mirror or control condition Infants in the mirror condition received two weeks of daily mirror exposure Mirror training enhanced sensorimotor cortex activity during the observation of facial actions No corresponding increase in facial mimicry was observed.</p>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"29 4","pages":"e70221"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13158638/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147870023","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hemodynamic Responses to Word Forms in Japanese Infant-Directed Vocabulary in 5- and 9-Month-Old Infants: Early Sensitivity to Prosodic Structure and Emergence of Prosodic Representations.","authors":"Yoritaka Akimoto, Miki Takahasi, Naoto Yamane, Rachel Ka-Ying Tsui, Akiko Hayashi, Reiko Mazuka","doi":"10.1111/desc.70214","DOIUrl":"10.1111/desc.70214","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The prosodic characteristics of a native language greatly influence early language acquisition. Yet, Japanese mothers are known to use a specific prosodic structure in infant-directed vocabulary (IDV)-specifically, three-mora, two-syllable words with a heavy-light pattern-which, crucially, differs from the standard prosodic rhythm of adult vocabulary. This study used near-infrared spectroscopy to examine hemodynamic responses to the Japanese IDV form in 5-month-old (n = 31) and 9-month-old (n = 34) Japanese infants, targeting the period before and during the emergence of this preference. The results revealed that oxygenated hemoglobin was greater for the IDV form than for the non-IDV form in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) for both age groups, consistent with the advantage of the IDV form observed in previous behavioral studies. Furthermore, this effect was localized to the left middle and left posterior STG in 5- and 9-month-old infants, respectively, highlighting early sensitivity to its prosodic structure followed by the emergence of phonological representation. This cortical shift, along with an observed trend toward adult-like patterns, may suggest a broader transition from perceptually accessible IDV structures to the more diverse patterns of standard adult vocabulary. Although 5-month-old infants who have not yet exhibited a preference for the IDV form may not have developed specific phonological representations, their brains' ability to process its prosodic pattern could serve as a foundation for subsequent learning. These findings demonstrate that the specific structure of Japanese IDV acts as a foundational scaffold, guiding the transition from initial prosodic tuning to mature word-level processing. SUMMARY: Early sensitivity to prosodic structure was observed in 5-month-old Japanese infants. Emerging phonological representation was observed in 9-month-old Japanese infants. Japanese infant-directed vocabulary form serves as a prosodic template.</p>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"29 4","pages":"e70214"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13151418/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147844656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Deaf Children's Use of Mutual Exclusivity and Eye Gaze to Determine Word Meanings in American Sign Language","authors":"Allison Fitch, Amy M. Lieberman","doi":"10.1111/desc.70202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70202","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>When determining the meaning of new words, young children have a variety of cues available to them. Two types of such cues are referential attention (e.g., gaze and point cues), and lexical constraints, such as mutual exclusivity biases. This is likely also true for deaf children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL), however, the visual modality of the language and the variation in individual early language experience may affect the extent to which they prioritize these cues in ways that are different from hearing children acquiring spoken language. In the current study, we examined the relative use of gaze following and mutual exclusivity to learn new signs in a sample of young deaf children (ages 20–60 months) acquiring ASL. In a behavioral two alternative forced-choice paradigm, children were asked to choose between two objects (one familiar, one novel) using a prompt with a gaze cue, a novel sign, or both cues in conflict. Our findings demonstrate that young deaf children recruit mutual exclusivity in determining referent labels if their early language experience is primarily monolingual in ASL, while those who were bimodal bilingual in ASL and spoken English showed less clear preferences. Children did not show a clear preference for gaze cues or mutual exclusivity when the two cues were presented in conflict. This study informs our understanding of the language acquisition process in ASL and provides further evidence for accounts of how children learning language across modalities recruit referential versus lexical cues to support word learning.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Deaf children acquiring American Sign Language demonstrated a mutual exclusivity bias when mapping novel signs to novel objects.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Bimodal bilingual children (acquiring ASL and English) were not as clear in their use of mutual exclusivity relative to monolingual (acquiring ASL only) peers.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Children relied on adult gaze as a reliable referential cue, particularly in the monolingual group, and this strengthened with age.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Children did not show a clear preference for gaze or linguistic cues when the two were presented in conflict.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"29 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2026-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148343350","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Elaine Reese, Tugce Bakir-Demir, Louis J. Moses, Sean Marshall, Elizabeth Schaughency, Karen Salmon, Mele Taumoepeau, Jimmy McLauchlan, Clair Edgeler, Hayley Guiney, Jesse Kokaua, Paul E. Jose, Amanda Clifford, Natasha Maruariki, Yana Dorana, Yuxin Zhang, Scarlet Mollan, Stuart McNaughton
{"title":"The Kia Tīmata Pai Randomized Controlled Trial: ENRICH Early Childhood Teacher Training Improves Toddlers’ Oral Language and Self-Regulation","authors":"Elaine Reese, Tugce Bakir-Demir, Louis J. Moses, Sean Marshall, Elizabeth Schaughency, Karen Salmon, Mele Taumoepeau, Jimmy McLauchlan, Clair Edgeler, Hayley Guiney, Jesse Kokaua, Paul E. Jose, Amanda Clifford, Natasha Maruariki, Yana Dorana, Yuxin Zhang, Scarlet Mollan, Stuart McNaughton","doi":"10.1111/desc.70198","DOIUrl":"10.1111/desc.70198","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Children's oral language and self-regulation skills are critical for healthy development and life trajectories. ENRICH is a preventive intervention developed for early childhood teachers to enhance these skills in toddlers. Kia Tīmata Pai (Best Start study) is a longitudinal cluster randomized controlled trial in 136 New Zealand early childhood education centers testing the impact of ENRICH with 1875 teachers on 1481 toddlers’ (<i>M</i> = 20.6 months at recruitment; 72% European, 24% Māori, 23% Asian, 9% Pacific using a total response method; 7% low-SES, 40% middle-SES, 53% high-SES) oral language and self-regulation skills. After 18 months, ENRICH produced benefits for children's oral language and self-regulation skills (parent and teacher ratings) and for early literacy and social skills (teacher ratings) compared to an active control condition. Oral language benefits (parent ratings) emerged earlier for children from low- and mid-socioeconomic (SES) families and whose mothers had lower educational qualifications. Benefits for oral language and self-regulation skills at age 3 held regardless of children's SES, ethnicity, bilingual status, initial language level, age, and maternal education. Benefits for oral language at age 3 were moderated by child sex and differed by informant, with teachers perceiving greater ENRICH benefits for boys, and parents for girls. The likely mechanism of ENRICH's effects is through sensitive serve-and-return interactions that support children's oral language and attention skills. ENRICH is a potentially powerful tool for supporting toddlers’ language, cognitive, and socioemotional development with possible downstream effects for academic achievement, health, and well-being. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/iIV1l0-cKIo.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>ENRICH is a new oral language preventive intervention designed for early childhood education teachers of toddlers based on serve-and-return and rich conversations across the day.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>A longitudinal cluster randomized controlled trial showed that ENRICH improved toddlers’ oral language, self-regulation, emergent literacy, and social skills compared to an active control condition.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Oral language benefits emerged earlier for toddlers from low- and middle-socioeconomic status (SES) families and whose mothers had lower educational qualifications.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Benefits for oral language and self-regulation skills at age 3 held regardless of children's SES, maternal education, ethnicity, bilingual status, initial language level, and ag","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"29 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2026-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70198","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148363046","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Effects of Children's Video Gaming Experience on Chinese Orthographic Processing and Its Neural Mechanisms","authors":"Mengmeng Su, Wei Zhou","doi":"10.1111/desc.70243","DOIUrl":"10.1111/desc.70243","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study investigates the effects of gaming genres on behavioral and neural mechanisms of Chinese orthographic processing. A total of 1462 primary school students completed a gaming and reading experience questionnaire and an orthographic judgment task, with 45 participants undergoing fMRI scans during orthographic and font size judgment tasks. Participants were categorized into three groups: action video gamers, non-action video gamers, and non-video gamers. Behavioral analyses revealed that action video gamers outperformed the other groups in orthographic skills, when age, gender, and video gaming time were statistically controlled. Neural analyses focused on modular interactions among vision, attention, and working memory networks. During the orthographic judgment task, action video gamers exhibited significantly stronger vision-working memory modular interaction compared to the other groups. No significant group differences were observed in vision-attention modular interactions during the orthographic judgment task or in any modular interaction during the font size judgment task, suggesting cognition-specific and task-specific effects. These findings highlight the potential benefits of action video gaming on orthographic processing and its associated neural networks, particularly in integrating vision and working memory.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Action video gamers outperformed others in orthographic processing skills.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Action video gaming was associated with better vision-working memory neural interactions.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Modular interactions were cognition-specific and task-specific.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"29 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2026-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148363078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}