The present study examined the links between haptic word processing speed, vocabulary, and inhibitory control among bilingual children. Three main hypotheses were tested: faster haptic processing speed, measured by the Computerized Comprehension Task at age 1;11, would be associated with larger concurrent vocabulary and greater longitudinal…

This study investigated the associations between infant frontal EEG power (5 month), infant visual attention (10 month), and toddler executive functioning (EF; 24 month), extending previous research predominantly conducted with school-aged children. Data were collected from 410 typically developing children (51% female; 78% White, non-Hispanic)…

Extensive evidence and theory suggest that the development of motor skills during infancy and early childhood initiates a "developmental cascade" for cognitive abilities, such as reading and math. Motor skills are closely connected with the development of spatial cognition, an ability that supports deductive reasoning. Despite the…

Here we report, for the first time, a relationship between sensitivity to amplitude envelope rise time in infants and their later vocabulary development. Recent research in auditory neuroscience has revealed that amplitude envelope rise time plays a mechanistic role in speech encoding. Accordingly, individual differences in infant discrimination…

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is associated with significant language and communication delays, as well as problems with attention. This study investigated early language abilities in infants and toddlers with FXS (n = 13) and considered visual attention as a predictor of those skills. We found that language abilities increased over the study period of…

In the first year of life, the ability to search for hidden objects is an indicator of object permanence and, when multiple locations are involved, executive function (i.e. inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory). The current study was designed to examine attentional predictors of search in 5-month-old infants (as measured by the…

This study examined infants' early visual attention (at 1 month of age) and social engagement (4 months) as predictors of their later joint attention (12 and 18 months). The sample (n = 325), drawn from the Maternal Lifestyle Study, a longitudinal multicenter project conducted at 4 centers of the National Institute of Child Health and Human…

Six-month-olds reliably discriminate different monkey and human faces whereas 9-month-olds only discriminate different human faces. It is often falsely assumed that perceptual narrowing reflects a permanent change in perceptual abilities. In 3 experiments, ninety-six 12-month-olds' discrimination of unfamiliar monkey faces was examined. Following…

The aim of this study was to examine the combined influences of infants' attention and use of social cues in the prediction of their language outcomes. This longitudinal study measured infants' visual attention on a distractibility task (11 months), joint attention (14 months), and language outcomes (word-object association, 14 months; MBCDI…

Increasing attention has been devoted to the maturation of sensory processing in the first year of life. While the development of cortical visual function has been thoroughly studied, much less information is available on auditory processing and its early disorders. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the assessment techniques for…

Two experiments investigated how 16-20-week-old infants visually tracked an object that oscillated on a horizontal trajectory with a centrally placed occluder. To determine the principles underlying infants' tendency to shift gaze to the exiting side before the object arrives, occluder width, oscillation frequency, and motion amplitude were…

Young adults, originally tested as infants for their ability to process information as measured by selective attention to novelty (an operational definition of visual recognition memory), were revisited. A current estimate of IQ was obtained as well as a measure of academic achievement. Information processing ability at 6-12 months was predictive…

Assessed how individual characteristics and perceptions of infant needs are associated with decisions about employment. Comparisons and findings about decisions to work or stay home are interpreted in light of maternal demographic and personality attributes and maternal perceptions of infant needs and characteristics. (Author/BL)

Research on perceptual and cognitive capacities of the newborn has revealed that state variables typically interfere with or override the neonate's attentional and stimulus processing tendencies. This finding argues for the power of early state variables as behavioral determinants and, further, that neonatal state measures might provide good…

This study, with 53 Mexican-American infants, found that five predictors accounted for approximately 35 percent of the variance in receptive language at 12 and 22 months with average parental generation from Mexico (acculturation) and infant visual recognition memory accounting for 14 and 15 percent of the variance, respectively. No predictors…