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Infant attention and caregiver stimulation
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INFANT ATTENTION AND CAREGIVER STIMULATION by Marc H. Bornstein. These studies concern c o n t i n u i t y ~ mental development between infancy and early childhood and adult contributions to cognitive growth where information-processing capacities in the infant and didactic behaviors of caregivers are specified. In the principal longitudinal study: habituation and recognition memory were evaluated at 4 months; at 4 and 12 months, mother-infant interactions were coded for spontaneous perceptual and cognitive activities of infants (looking, manipulation, vocalization) and didactic activities of mothers (encouraging attention, talking to baby); and cognitive status of children was assessed at 12 months by Bayley Scales and productive vocabulary and at 4-61 years by Wechsler tests. Additionally: reliability! of infant measures was evaluated; twins participated in the same longitudinal design; and activities of nonworking and working mothers and nonparental caregivers toward babies were compared. Habituation, which is a reliable measure, shows individual differences and predicts linguistic performance at l and 4-6 years. Maternal encouraging attention to objects, properties, and events in the environment at 4 months also predicts children's performance. Cross-lagged panel correlation, multiple regression, and path analysis confirm the importance of maternal stimulation. Mothers of twins divide their didactic time to the disadvantage of each baby, and twins perform more poorly than singletons on cognitive tests. Evaluation of mothers versus caregivers suggests that particular input to the infant, rather than input from a particular person, is important in cognitive growth. The results indicate that cognit i v e competences beyond the f i r s t year of l i f e are mediated by and predictable from infant competences as well as from adult social didactic activities toward babies during the f i r s t half of the infant's f i r s t year of l i f e .
INFANT ATTENTION AND CAREGIVER STIMULATION by Marc H. Bornstein. These studies concern c o n t i n u i t y ~ mental development between infancy and early childhood and adult contributions to cognitive growth where information-processing capacities in the infant and didactic behaviors of caregivers are specified. In the principal longitudinal study: habituation and recognition memory were evaluated at 4 months; at 4 and 12 months, mother-infant interactions were coded for spontaneous perceptual and cognitive activities of infants (looking, manipulation, vocalization) and didactic activities of mothers (encouraging attention, talking to baby); and cognitive status of children was assessed at 12 months by Bayley Scales and productive vocabulary and at 4-61 years by Wechsler tests. Additionally: reliability! of infant measures was evaluated; twins participated in the same longitudinal design; and activities of nonworking and working mothers and nonparental caregivers toward babies were compared. Habituation, which is a reliable measure, shows individual differences and predicts linguistic performance at l and 4-6 years. Maternal encouraging attention to objects, properties, and events in the environment at 4 months also predicts children's performance. Cross-lagged panel correlation, multiple regression, and path analysis confirm the importance of maternal stimulation. Mothers of twins divide their didactic time to the disadvantage of each baby, and twins perform more poorly than singletons on cognitive tests. Evaluation of mothers versus caregivers suggests that particular input to the infant, rather than input from a particular person, is important in cognitive growth. The results indicate that cognit i v e competences beyond the f i r s t year of l i f e are mediated by and predictable from infant competences as well as from adult social didactic activities toward babies during the f i r s t half of the infant's f i r s t year of l i f e .