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van de Rijt-Plooij & Plooij (1992) have found periods of 'regressive behaviour' (Regression Periods), which accompany developmental transitions in infancy. In fullterm normal infants these periods occur at specific ages. The present study had two central aims. Firstly, to see if the Plooijs' finding of Regression Periods at 12, 17 and 26 weeks postpartum could be replicated. Secondly, to investigate the relationship between the length of Regression Periods for a control group of participants and a group of participants at heightened risk of developing insecure mother-infant attachment: mothers presenting with symptoms of post-natal depression. Forty-five mother-infant dyads participated in this prospective, longitudinal study. After seeing mothers at home, they were interviewed weekly, for approximately 15 weeks, about specific infant behaviours and their reactions to their infant. Following two types of manipulation of the data, Regression Periods for control group participants were detected at weeks 12, 16,20 and 24, whereas for participants in the post-natal depression group, Regression Periods were detected at weeks 14, 17 and 25, supporting the Plooijs' findings. Regression Periods were longer in the post-natal depression group. Depressed mothers were also less flexible in their mothering style, measured on the Facilitators & Regulators questionnaire. Based on the findings of this study, the development of insecure attachment is discussed. A clinical implication of this work is that information about Regression Periods could be made available to new-mothers, using Regression Period knowledge to focus on the prevention of insecure attachment.

Many developmental changes occur across the first year of life, including areas of cognitive, social, emotional, and physical growth. One challenge of developmental research is to understand the complex set of factors that influence behavior within and across these domains of functioning and change. The present research attempts to illuminate the effects that parent relationships and interactions have on infants’ ability to explore non-obvious object properties during free play. In our findings, the role of attachment, parents’ actions on objects, parental sensitivity during play, and synchronous interaction all related to an increase in infants’ object exploration when playing alone versus playing with a parent. These parent relationship and interaction factors affected infants’ exploration differently at 6 months than 12 months. Overall, relational factors appeared of greater important for infants’ more thorough object exploration than simply parents’ actions on objects. The social context was important for the cognitive outcome of infants’ object exploration.

Joint attention is an early emerging skill that plays a critical role in early child development (Moore & Dunham, 1995). This shared engagement facilitates language acquisition (e.g., Morales et al., 1998) and predicts social cognition in early childhood (Van Hecke et al., 2007). Thus, it is important to understand factors contributing to individual differences in joint attention development. One potential predictor is mother-infant synchrony, the extent to which mothers’ verbal and nonverbal input is contingent upon their infants’ focus (Siller & Sigman, 2002). Researchers found synchrony to be positively associated with the rate of language development (Akhtar et al., 1991). However, few studies have examined mother-infant synchrony longitudinally and whether synchrony influences individual differences in joint attention. The present study is one of the first to examine these relationships in depth prospectively. Twenty typically-developing infants (11 male) and their mothers participated at approximately 9, 12, and 15 months of age as part of a larger longitudinal study of infants at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Each dyad engaged in a 15-minute unstructured play session, which was coded for synchrony (Siller & Sigman, 2002). In addition, researchers administered the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS; Mundy et al., 2003) with the infant, which was coded for Initiating Joint Attention (IJA) and Responding to Joint Attention (RJA). The results suggest that synchrony was stable within dyads across 9, 12, and 15 months. Surprisingly, higher 9-month synchrony was correlated with lower 12-month RJA. Growth curve modeling revealed significant growth in RJA, but not IJA, over time. However, synchrony scores did not significantly predict growth in IJA or RJA over time as predicted. These preliminary results suggest that synchrony is a relatively stable construct that likely reflects true differences between mother-infant dyads. Mothers following their child’s lead more often at 9 months had infants exhibiting less RJA at 12 months. Contrary to our predictions, there were no other significant associations between synchrony and joint attention. These findings will be reexamined upon collection of additional data. Nonetheless, the current study helps to elucidate the nature of synchrony and joint attention over time in infancy. / text

Introduction. There is clear evidence that children raised in families affected by parental drug use are at high risk for a wide range of adverse outcomes, including; early cognitive and language delay (van Baar & de Graaff, 1994); poor school attendance and educational under-achievement (Hogan & Higgins, 2001; Steinhausen, Blattmann, & Pfund, 2007); substance abuse and psychological problems (Keller, Catalano, Haggerty, & Fleming, 2002; Kilpatrick, Acierno, Saunders, Resnick, Best, & Schnurr, 2000; Kolar, 1994; Lagasse, Hammond, Liu, Lester, Shankaran, Bada et al., 2006; Merikangas, Dierker, & Szatmari, 1998; Moss, Vanyukov, Majumder, Kirisci, & Tarter, 1995; Nunes, Weissman, Goldstein, McAvay, Beckford, Seracini et al., 2000; Nunes, Weissman, Goldstein, McAvay, Seracini, Verdeli et al., 1998; Stanger, Higgins, Bickel, Elk, Grabowski, Schmitz et al., 1999). Careful examination of the impact of parental drug use on children and the developmental mechanisms associated with risk and resilience is central to the establishment of appropriate intervention. Children born to mothers who are drug dependent and enrolled in methadone maintenance treatment during pregnancy face the “double jeopardy” of prenatal drug exposure and post-natal environmental disadvantage (Zuckerman & Brown, 1993). This research aimed to identify early developmental difficulties or differences in communicative and cognitive development, and in particular the joint attention skills, of young children born to mothers engaged in methadone maintenance treatment. Of particular interest was the way in which pre- and postnatal factors combined to influence developmental outcome at age 2 years. This prospective, longitudinal study offered the opportunity to indentify early indicators of developmental differences in this group and thus, contribute to a better understanding of the long-term mechanisms of risk. Research Methods. Sixty children born to mothers engaged in methadone maintenance treatment and 60 randomly-selected, non-exposed comparison children were followed prospectively from birth to age 2 years. During the third trimester of pregnancy, mothers completed a comprehensive maternal interview. At 18 months, children were visited at home and evaluations of the social background, family and childrearing context were completed. At age 2 years, all children underwent a developmental assessment that included the Early Social Communication Scales (ESCS) (Mundy, Hogan, & Doehring, 1996). The ESCS consists of a semi-structured series of activities, which assess the joint attention abilities, social skills and interactive behaviour of infants aged 8 to 30 months. The focus of this study was on children’s use of two types of communicative behaviour – requesting and affect-sharing communications. Alongside the ESCS, the Mental Development Index (MDI) and language items from the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID-II) (Bayley, 1993) and the Communication and Symbolic Behaviour Scales– Developmental Profile (CSBS-DP) (Wetherby & Prizant, 1998), were used to assess concurrent cognitive and language skills. Results. The results of this study indicated that children born to mothers engaged in methadone maintenance treatment were typically growing up in single-parent families (p=<.0001) and in welfare-dependent households (p=<.0001). Methadone-exposed children were also more likely to be living in out-of-home care placements at age 18months than comparison group children (p=<.0001). Their caregivers were less likely to be accepting of (p=<.01) and responsive to their needs (p=.008) compared to parents of comparison children. At home, methadone-exposed children had fewer learning opportunities (p=<.0001) and were more likely to live in houses where the television was on for longer, compared to non-exposed children (p=<.001). Caregivers of methadone-exposed toddlers reported more depression (p=<.0001), more illicit substance use (p=<.0001) and more family stress (p=.004) than comparison caregivers. They were also more often victims of psychological aggression (p=.002) and violence from others (p=<.0001), but they also reported that they were more likely to use psychological aggression (p=<.001) and physical punishment (p=<.03) in managing their children’s behaviour than comparison caregivers. The developmental assessment at age 2 years suggested that methadone-exposed children were significantly more likely to engage in communicative behaviour, which expressed a request, than non-exposed, comparison children (p=.03). On the other hand, analysis suggested that whilst methadone-exposed children were less likely than comparison children to engage in communication, which had the goal of affect sharing, this difference did not reach significance (p=.27). Previous research links greater use of requesting behaviours with later behaviour problems (Sheinkopf, Mundy, Claussen, & Willoughby, 2004). The MDI, BSID language measure and CSBS results further indicated significant delay in both cognitive (p =<.0001) and language development (p =<.0001) in the methadone-exposed group, compared to the comparison group. Between group differences were attenuated by control for confounding social background and prenatal factors, including maternal education, gestational age, other drug exposures during pregnancy and gender, but significant differences remained. Further analysis suggested that parenting practices and family environment factors were important intervening influences on the relationship between being born to a mother engaged in methadone maintenance treatment and poorer outcomes. More specifically, the association between methadone-exposure and differences in joint attention behaviours, were explained by caregiver use of psychological aggression (p=.01), caregiver disruption (p=.07) and caregiver stress (p=.01). On the other hand, poorer cognitive and language outcomes were explained by family contextual factors, including a less child-centered home environment (p=.008), caregiver disruption (p=.001), increased use of background TV (p=.02) and fewer stimulating activities (p=.06) Discussion. The family circumstances of children born to mothers engaged in methadone maintenance treatment during pregnancy, when compared with a group of randomly-selected comparison children, showed pervasive differences and multiple disadvantage. Findings suggest that these differences in family disruption, family functioning and parenting practices explain the negative outcomes of methadone-exposed children in early cognitive and communication skills at age 2 years. These results raise concerns for the later functioning of methadone-exposed children and emphasise the key importance of early intervention for children and families affected by parental drug use.

Infants acculturate to their soundscape over the first year of life (e.g., Hannon & Trehub, 2005a; Werker & Tees, 1984). This perceptual tuning of early auditory skills requires integrating across experiences that repeat and vary in content and are distributed in time. Music is part of this soundscape, yet little is known about the real-world musical input available to infants as they begin learning sounds, melodies, rhythms, and words. In this dissertation, we collected and analyzed a first-of-its-kind corpus of music identified in day-long audio recordings of 6- to 12-month-old infants and their caregivers in their natural, at-home environments. We characterized the structure of this input in terms of key distributional and temporal properties that shape learning in many domains (e.g., Oakes & Spalding, 1997; Roy et al., 2015; Vlach et al., 2008; Weisleder & Fernald, 2013). This everyday sensory input serves as the data available for infants to aggregate in order to build knowledge about music. We discovered that infants encountered nearly an hour of cumulative music per day distributed across multiple instances. Infants encountered many different tunes and voices in their daily music. Within this diverse range, infants encountered consistency, such that some tunes and voices were more available than others in infants’ everyday musical input. The proportion of music produced by live voices varied widely across infants. As infants progressed in time through their days, they encountered many music instances close together in time as well as some music instances separated by much longer lulls. This bursty temporal pattern also characterized how infants encountered instances of their top tune and their top voice – the specific tune and specific voice that occurred for the longest cumulative duration in each infant’s day. Finally, infants encountered many pairs of consecutive music bouts with repeated content – the same unique tune or the same unique voice. Taken together, we discovered that infants’ everyday musical input was more consistent than random in both content and time across infants’ days at home. These findings have potential to inform theory and future research examining how the nature of early music experience shapes infants’ early learning.

A avaliaÃÃo do desenvolvimento infantil à necessÃria para que haja o monitoramento e o acompanhamento das mudanÃas ocorrentes na vida da crianÃa, buscando identificar as caracterÃsticas prÃprias e relacionÃ-las com os respectivos perÃodos de desenvolvimento do ser humano. O estudo objetivou avaliar o desenvolvimento neuromotor de crianÃas com idade de 2m15d a 12m15d. Estudo descritivo-exploratÃrio, transversal, com enfoque analÃtico, realizado em Centro de SaÃde da FamÃlia nos municÃpios de Fortaleza e Sobral, CearÃ, Brasil. A amostra foi composta por 330 crianÃas e seus respectivos pais/responsÃveis, 165 em cada municÃpio referido. A coleta de dados ocorreu de marÃo a junho/2012, utilizando Harris Infant Neuromotor Test (HINT) versÃo brasileira e Instrumento de VigilÃncia do Desenvolvimento do MinistÃrio da SaÃde (Caderneta de SaÃde da CrianÃa), formulÃrio contendo dados sociodemogrÃficos dos pais/cuidadores. A coleta de dados se deu apÃs aprovaÃÃo pelo Comità de Ãtica em pesquisa da Universidade Federal do CearÃ. Os dados foram organizados no programa Excel e analisados no SPSS versÃo 18 e para todos os testes foi utilizado o Intervalo de ConfianÃa de 95% (p<0,05). Os resultados mostraram que 52 crianÃas de Fortaleza estavam na idade de 2m15d a 3m15d, e, em Sobral, 47 estavam na idade de 11m16d a 12m15d. De acordo com os dados, houve associaÃÃo estatÃstica significante entre o tipo de parto e os dois municÃpios (p=0,020) e o estado civil das mÃes de Fortaleza com os escores finais do HINT (p=0,035). Houve diferenÃa significativa do Instrumento de VigilÃncia do Desenvolvimento do MinistÃrio da SaÃde entre crianÃas nascidas a termo e prÃ-termo de Fortaleza (p=0,000) e Sobral (p=0,000) e da renda familiar em Sobral (p=0,022). NÃo houve diferenÃa estatisticamente significante entre os dois municÃpios ao se associar as variÃveis sociodemogrÃficas renda, tipo de chÃo, esgoto e coleta de lixo. Quanto aos questionamentos do HINT direcionado aos responsÃveis pelas crianÃas, em Fortaleza, 117 pais afirmaram sentir o bebà âsÃlido e firmeâ, 88 que a movimentaÃÃo da crianÃa era âexcelenteâ e 85 relataram que os filhos estavam âacima do padrÃo esperadoâ ao serem comparadas com outras da mesma idade. Em Sobral, 132 pais afirmaram sentir o filho âsÃlido e firmeâ, 92 que a movimentaÃÃo era âexcelenteâ e 87 que o filho estava âde acordo com a idadeâ. O resultado da avaliaÃÃo do desempenho neuromotor por meio do HINT mostrou que a maioria das crianÃas, 98 (59,3%) em Fortaleza, pontuou com escore normal e ao serem avaliadas com o Instrumento de VigilÃncia do Desenvolvimento do MinistÃrio da SaÃde (Caderneta de SaÃde da CrianÃa), 127 (77%) em Fortaleza e 144 (87,3%) em Sobral, foram classificadas com o desenvolvimento adequado. Entretanto, os dois instrumentos nÃo mostraram correlaÃÃo significativa entre si (K = -0,010). Apesar disso, os dois instrumentos pertinentes para uso com a clientela estudada, apresentando vantagens e desvantagens, exigindo que novas pesquisas sejam realizadas com amostras e delineamentos diferentes. / The evaluation of infant development is necessary to monitor and follow-up changes in childrenâs lives, seeking to identify their own characteristics and relate them to the respective human development stages. This study aims at evaluating motor development in children aged 2m15d to 12m15d. It is a descriptive-exploratory transversal study with an analytic approached carried out in Family Health Centers in the municipalities of Fortaleza and Sobral, CearÃ, Brazil. The sample is composed of 330 children and their respective parents/caregivers, 165 from each referred municipality. Data collection took place from March to June 2012 using the Harris Infant Neuromotor Test (HINT) Brazilian version and the Ministry of Health Development Control Protocol, a form that includes socio-demographic data on parents/caregivers. Data was collected after approval granted by the Cearà Federal University Research Ethics Committee. Data was organized in Excel charts and analyzed through the SPSS version 18, and a Confidence Interval of 95% (p<0.05) was applied to all tests. Results showed that 52 Fortaleza children were aged 2m15d to 3m15d whereas in Sobral, 47 were between 11m16d and 12m15d. According to data, there was a significant statistical correlation between the baby delivery method and the two municipalities (p=0.020) and the marital status of Fortaleza mothers with the HINT final scores (p=0.035). There was also a remarkable difference in the Ministry of Health Development Protocol between term and preterm babies in Fortaleza (p=0.000) and Sobral (p=0.000) and the family income in Sobral (p=0.022). No statistically relevant differences were noticed between the two municipalities with regards to socio-demographic variables such as income, home floor type, basic sanitation and garbage collection. As for the HINT questionnaire directed to those responsible for looking after the children, in Fortaleza, 117 parents affirmed that they felt their baby was âstrong and firmâ, 88 of them stated that the childâs mobility was âexcellentâ and 85 reported that their children were âabove expected standardsâ when compared to others of the same age. In Sobral, 132 parents affirmed to feel their child to be âstrong and firmâ, 92 said their mobility was âexcellentâ and 87 said that the child was in ânormal development for his/her ageâ. The result of the neuromotor evaluation performance through the HINT program showed that most children, 98 (59.3%) in Fortaleza got a normal score and when evaluated through the Ministry of Health Control Protocol (Child Health Booklet) 127 (77%) in Fortaleza and 144 (87.3%) in Sobral were classified with adequate development. However, both instruments did not present a significant correlation between each other (K = -0.010). Despite this fact, both instruments proved to be useful for the target public, presenting advantages and disadvantages, which require further research with different samples and guidelines.

A recent focus of our Program for the Study of Infancy is the extent to which lab assistants retain fidelity when implementing experimental protocols. Dixon et al. showed that experimenters’ implementations of some aspects of standardized protocols can be influenced by infants’ temperaments. Ellefson and Oppenheimer further found that procedural deviations reduce effect sizes and lead to heterogeneity of findings. In this project, we evaluated archival videos involving experimenters’ implementations of two elicited imitation tasks, “Feed Bear” and “Make a Rattle.” In both tasks, experimenters were assumed to adhere to a narrative script and procedure, which included familiarizing infants with experimental stimuli for 60 seconds prior to infants engaging the tasks. Experimenters were also expected to adhere to a standardized narrative script that accompanied the modeling of “feeding the bear” or “making a rattle.” In this study we explored whether they did so, independent of infants' temperament characteristics. Ten experimenters guided sixty-one 15-month-olds through the experimental procedure. We examined two types of dependent measures reflecting 1) whether experimenters adhered to the 60 second familiarization time protocol, and 2) whether experimenters adhered to the standardized scripts. We also tracked experimenter infant-directed speech (IDS) before the model (prologue IDS) and after the model (epilogue IDS), to see if experimenters’ speech was potentially influenced by infant temperament. Infant temperament was measured by parent-report using the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ). For familiarization times in the Feed Bear task, experimenters granted significantly longer times to the infants than they were supposed to [M = 68.72, SD = 17.14; t(28) = 2.74, p = .011]. But there were no differences among the experimenters in familiarization time. For Make a Rattle, experimenters were on-target with their familiarization times (M = 67.64, SD = 21.38). Infant temperament was not associated with familiarization times in either task. In terms of IDS, experimenters used more words in the standardized narratives of both tasks than they were supposed to [M = 123.90, SD = 18.03; t(28) = 7.73, p M = 109.00, SD = 9.52; t(27) = 15.01, p < .001] respectively. There was no association between IDS during the narrative phase and infant temperament. However, there were associations between infant temperament and IDS during the prologue and epilogue phases; namely for effortful control (prologue r = .29, p p < .05), impulsivity (prologue r = .23, p p

Although there is a wealth of knowledge on categorization in infancy, there are still many unanswered questions about the nature of category representation in infancy. For example, it is yet unclear whether categories in infancy have well-defined boundaries or what knowledge about species categories young infants have before entering the lab. Using a morphing technique, we linearly altered the proportion of cat versus dog in images and observed how infants reacted to contrasts between pairs of images that either did or did not cross over the categorical boundary. This was done while equating between-category and within-category similarity. Results indicate that infants’ pre-existing categories of cats and dogs are discrete and mutually exclusive. Experiment 2 found that inversion caused a disruption in processing by 6.5- but not 3.5- month-old infants, indicating a developmental change in category representation. These findings demonstrate a propensity to dichotomize early in life that could have implications for social categorizations, such as race and gender. Furthermore, this work extends previous knowledge of infant categorical perception by demonstrating a priori knowledge of familiar species categories and the boundaries between them.

Introduction: Maternal antenatal depression is associated with increased risk of adverse offspring outcomes, which manifest in approximately 20% of infants. However, the mechanisms by which risk is transferred from mother to infant, and the factors determining susceptibility to antenatal mood disturbance, remain poorly understood. Objectives: The primary objectives of this thesis are to investigate whether: (i) Antenatal depression is associated with alterations of the maternal and infant Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis. (ii) The infant serotonin transporter genotype (5-HTTLPR) confers susceptibility to antenatal mood disturbance. Methods: This thesis is an analysis of two different cohorts. First, 103 pregnant women were recruited in Oxford, UK. Participants’ self-reported antenatal mood, and salivary cortisol was assessed in response to a stressor and diurnally. 88 participants were visited two months post-birth. Mothers reported postnatal mood and infant temperament. Infant cortisol responses to inoculation were assessed, as was infant DNA methylation. Analysis of this cohort addresses the first objective of this thesis. Next, data from the ALSPAC cohort was analysed to address the second objective. Maternal-reported antenatal mood and infant behaviour up to 7 years was available, as was 5-HTTLPR genotype data for over 4,000 infants. Results: Antenatal depression was not associated with increased maternal cortisol during pregnancy. Neither antenatal depression nor cortisol was associated with infant cortisol reactivity or temperament. Antenatal depression predicted increased NR3C1 DNA methylation in males, and decreased BDNF DNA methylation in male and female infants. Infant 5-HTTLPR genotype did not moderate associations between antenatal mood disturbance and behavioural difficulties. Conclusions: This thesis does not support the theory that antenatal depression exerts influence on infant development via increased activity of the maternal and infant HPA axis; however, changes in infant DNA methylation may be a mediating mechanism. Further, susceptibility to antenatal mood may be more complex than previously thought.