Individual differences in child temperament have been associated with individual differences in language development. Similarly, relationships have been reported between early nonverbal social communication (joint attention) and both temperament and language. The present study examined whether individual differences in joint attention might mediate temperament-language relationships. Temperament, language, and joint attention were assessed in 51 21-month-olds. Results indicated an inverse relationship between aspects of temperamental difficulty, including low executive control and high negative affect, and language development. Temperamental aspects of negative affect were also inversely predictive of joint attention. However, the utility of a model in which joint attention mediates the relationship between temperament and language during the second year was not supported.

Developmental scientists have become increasingly interested in the relationship between cumulative demographic risk and developmental outcomes. Risk has been defined as “a process that serves to increase the chances of experiencing a negative outcome in one or several domains of functioning…” (Popp, Spinrad, & Smith, 2008). Cumulative risk models are often preferred over single risk models because individual risk factors such as poverty and single parenthood are so highly correlated. Although researchers have demonstrated strong associations between cumulative risk and a variety of child outcomes, to our knowledge only Popp et al. have investigated links with child temperament, with a specific focus on infancy. In the present study we investigate links between cumulative and single risk indices and child temperament in 4- to 6-year-olds. Unlike other studies, we also consider rural status as an possible risk indicator. Data were collected in two types of setting: a university-affiliated child-care facility (N = 33, about 52% girls) and a group of rural, county-funded preschools and kindergartens (N = 21, about 62% girls). Mean age across the two samples was 4.57 years (SD = 1.11 years). A cumulative risk index was created by summing across eight risk indicators based on 1) income, 2) marital status, 3) ethnicity/race, 4) family size, 5) maternal education, 6) maternal age at birth, 7) maternal occupational status, and 8) rurality status. Risk factors were dichotomized (1 vs 0) based on whether the family met a specific risk criterion (Table 1). Temperament was measured via mother report using the Child Behavior Questionnaire, which produced three overarching temperament scores: surgency, negative affectivity, and effortful control. In terms of cumulative risk scores, 16 (30%) of the mothers had zero risk indicators, 14 (26%) had one, 8 (15%) had two, 9 (17%) had three, 4 (8%) had four, and 2 (4%) had five. No cumulative risk score exceeded five. Mean cumulative risk was 1.64 (SD = 1.51). As shown in Table 2, greater cumulative risk was associated with higher scores on surgency and negative affectivity but not effortful control. The most strongly associated individual risk factors were household income and rurality status, which were also strongly related to one other [r(53) = .61, p = .000]. Regression analyses revealed that rurality accounted for unique variance over and above income in both surgency (R2 = .20, p = .000) and negative affect (R2 = .42, p = .000), but not vice versa. These results support the contention that cumulative demographic risk is linked to at least two superdimensions of temperament in early school age, wherein a driving factor appears to be a child’s rurality status. Moreover, the valence of these associations is consistent with the notion that greater demographic risk may lead to negative temperament outcomes. Both negative affectivity and surgency (at least to the extent that surgency indexes activity level and impulsive behavior) are characteristics that many would regard as contributing to temperamental difficulty. This link is notable because many researchers regard temperamental difficulty as a risk indicator for negative developmental outcomes in its own right. Fifty-six children (26 boys) visited the lab at M = 18.3 months (SD = 0.43 months). The Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ; Putnam et al., 2006) superdimension of effortful control was used as a surrogate measure of early executive function. To measure child activity level, we used the mother-reported activity level subdimension from the ECBQ, and also coded mother-child free play periods to quantify children’s predilection to use physical activity in the service of social or cognitive objectives, such as grasping a spoon and extending the arm outwards to feed a baby doll, which we termed sociocognitive activity. To measure sociocognitive activity we used a modified version of Tamis-LeMonda and Bornstein’s (1990) play competence scale wherein each instance of sociocognitive activity was noted and summed for a total score of sociocognitive activity level (See Table 1). Finally, to gauge maternal encouragement, a modified version of the Dyadic Parent Child Interaction Coding System (DPICS; Eyeberg, Nelson, Duke, & Boggs, 2005) was used to identify maternal commands, praise, questions, physical involvement, talking, touching, and scaffolding behaviors during mother-child free play sessions. Zero-order correlations revealed a significant negative relationship between mother-reported activity level and child executive function (r = -.42, p < 0.01), replicating previous findings. However, correlations between sociocognitive activity and executive function, while positive, was not significant. We conducted moderation analyses separately for each maternal encouragement variable, and found that a higher amount of maternal questioning during play corresponded to a positive association between sociocognitive activity and executive functioning (moderator = 1.00, p < 0.05). These findings partially support our hypotheses and suggest that the ways in which caregivers direct and train activity during play through questioning strategies may also direct and train cognitive functioning. However, further research is needed to support these claims. These results also point toward issues with the measurement of activity level, as our two measures of activity produced significantly different correlations with executive functioning (z = -3.4, p < 0.01). Future research in the area of motor development as it pertains to cognitive functioning should investigate and develop a standard measure of motor activity that is capable of capturing not only simple milestone achievement and intensity levels, but also the amount of sociocognitive engagement during physical activity.

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Researchers have demonstrated a persistent relationship between joint attention (JA) and language abilities. For example, 14-month JA is associated with concurrent performance on a word-object association task under control conditions as well as under distraction (Salley et al., 2012). Research has also shown associations between temperament and language. For example, 13-month temperament predicts 20-month productive vocabulary (Dixon & Shore, 1997). It has been suggested that "risky" temperamental profiles, such as when children have high negative affectivity and low effortful control, can especially lead to language delay (Dixon & Smith, 2000). In this investigation, we explored whether temperamental profile might moderate the relationship between JA and language ability. Eighty-three children (32 girls) visited the lab at M = 15.45 months (SD = 1.92 months). Caregivers completed the Infant Behavioral Questionnaire-Revised (IBQR) and the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Gestures (MCDI-WG). The IBQ-R produced three overarching superdimensions: surgency, negative affectivity, and effortful control, two of which were used to identify children as temperamentally "at-risk" or "buffered." Total receptive vocabulary was derived from the MCDI-WG. Temperamental risk was defined as scoring high in negative affectivity and low in effortful control; while temperamental buffering was defined as scoring low in negative affectivity and high in effortful control. JA was measured using a Brooks and Meltzoff (2005) type gaze-following procedure, with some gaze-following trials subjected to an exogenous distractor (Elmo video playing in the background), and others undistracted. JA was defined as total infant looking time to experimenter-fixated target objects. Overall, receptive vocabulary was correlated with JA in both nondistracted (r = .30, p = .01) and distracted conditions (r = .25, p = .04). Although infants did not differ in either JA or receptive vocabulary as a function of temperamental profile, we found that the correlation between JA and receptive vocabulary did. Specifically, JA was not associated with receptive vocabulary for children with risky temperament (see Table 1). But there was a large and positive association between receptive vocabulary and JA among children with a buffered temperament, regardless of distraction condition. Moderation analyses confirmed that temperamental risk was a significant moderator of the JA-receptive vocabulary relationship (moderator control = -1.09, p = .006; moderator distraction = - 0.75, p = .01). These results are partially consistent with theoretical expectations, although they need be supported by further research. They suggest, for example, that the JAlanguage relationship may be attenuated or enhanced depending on infants' temperament profiles. It may be that children who are low in negative affectivity and high in effortful control can maximize their allocation of attention both in the service of following the gaze of a social partner, and in making word-referent mappings during social exchange. The fact that the JA-receptive vocabulary correlation appeared unaffected by the presence of an exogenous distractor raises the possibility that one means through which a buffering temperamental profile may operate is by desensitizing children to ambient environmental distractions during real-time acquisition of linguistically relevant stimuli.

It is becoming increasingly clear that infants’ and toddlers’ temperament may play a central role in their cognitive and linguistic functioning. Research has found, for example, that at 21 months of age, children’s “attentional focus” moderates the extent that environmental distractions prevent them from learning novel words or solving nonlinguistic problems. The purpose of the present investigation was to explore the extent that dimensions of temperament moderate the performance of 15-month-olds on two typical nonlinguistic problemsolving tasks in the presence of environmental distractions. Forty-two 15-month olds visited the lab and were presented two tasks: “feed bear” and “make a rattle.” Infants were familiarized with the two sets of props initially, and then were presented models of desired action sequences. Half the children experienced a distraction during the feed bear task, the remaining were distracted during make a rattle. For each task, four dependent variables were scored: number of target actions performed, variety of target actions performed, longest chain of target actions performed, and number of pairs of actions performed in order. Temperament was measured via maternal report using the Early Child Behavior Questionnaire. Multivariate analyses revealed that children’s performance varied as a function of task [F(5, 24) = 5.42, p = .001]. The distractions also attenuated the effects of the model for both feed bear [univariate Fs(1, 40) = 4.21 to 9.22, ps = .047 to .018] and make a rattle [univariate Fs (1, 40) = 4.08 to 6.08, ps = .050 to .018]. Interactions of these effects with temperament were many, but complex. For example, low intensity pleasure moderated distracter effects, but only for feed bear [Fs(1, 27) = 5.19 to 9.73, ps = .031 to .004]. In other analyses, toddlers low in perceptual sensitivity benefited more from the model than did children high on that dimension [F’s(1, 28) = 3.71 to 6.67, p’s = .064 to .015)]. A number of additional temperament related findings also obtained. There is considerable reason to continue explorations into potential roles that temperament may play in infants’ cognitive and language development. Results from the present study extend previous findings to the 15-month age period, which, to our knowledge, has not been investigated in previous research. The present results also suggest that roles played by temperament may be exceptionally complex, and highlight the multifaceted internal and external experiences through which children must navigate to become competent thinkers and communicators in an adult world.

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The field of equine assisted activities and therapies (EAAT) is growing in popularity as an alternative healing approach. However, there is a paucity of peer-reviewed research on the horses who serve as equal partners in EAAT. The purpose of this quantitative study was to discover the impact of equine-facilitated therapeutic activities on the temperament of horses, and to determine how to select a better human-to-horse therapeutic match when providing EAAT services. The theoretical framework for this research drew from Romanes' theory of animal intelligence, which predicts that temperament would change as a result of prolonged participation in specific work (EAAT in this case) that would cause the horse to reflect its associate's temperament. The study explored whether horses used in EAAT programs exhibit unique traits, whether the use of horses in an equine-human development program with clients diagnosed with health disorders affects the temperament of the horses over time, and whether a relationship exists between EAAT horses and positive therapeutic outcomes for clients. Sixty-four horse handlers in EAAT and 75 in control programs completed the Horse Personality Questionnaire (HPQ) designed to assess horse temperament. Temperament traits were then compared between EAAT and control horses, for horses participating at EAAT programs for different durations of time, and for horses that were more effective in treatment. Significant differences in temperament traits were present between horses in EAAT and control programs, as revealed by t-tests. The results identified traits of the most effective EAAT horses. This study contributes to social change by providing EAAT with a comprehensive horse temperament assessment that can inform efforts to unify and extend the field.