The Baby Care Questionnaire: A measure of parenting principles and practices during infancy

The current report provides a new framework to explore the role of parenting practices andprinciples during infancy. We identify structure and attunement as key parenting princi-ples during infancy. Structure represents reliance on regularity and routines in daily life.Attunement represents reliance on infant cues and close physical contact. We suggest par-ents’ relative endorsement of these parenting principles is related to their choices aboutpractices such as feeding, holding and night-time sleeping. We designed the Baby CareQuestionnaire to measure parents’ endorsement of structure and attunement, as well astheir daily parenting practices. We report data demonstrating the factor structure, reliabil-ity and validity of the BCQ. The BCQ, to our knowledge, is the first comprehensive measure ofparenting practices and principles during infancy. We conclude with a discussion of futuredirections for the measure

Parenting beliefs about attunement and structure are related to observed parenting behaviours

We compared self-reported parenting beliefs about caring for infants with observed parenting behaviours during play interactions between 32 parents and their infants. We measured parenting beliefs about the value of attunement and structure in caring for infants using the Baby Care Questionnaire (BCQ) (Winstanley & Gattis, 2013; Winstanley, Sperotto, Putnick, Cherian, Bornstein & Gattis, 2014). We used a micro-coding approach to distinguish between responsive parenting behaviours (maintaining infant attention) and demanding parenting behaviours (introducing or redirecting infant attention) (Landry, Garner, Swank & Baldwin, 1996). Attunement beliefs were positively related to responsive parenting behaviours and negatively related to demanding parenting behaviours. Structure beliefs were weakly related to demanding parenting behaviours. These results are an important first step toward identifying relations between self-reported parenting beliefs about attunement and structure and observed parenting behaviours

Responding to nature: Natural environments improve parent-child communication

Numerous studies have demonstrated that natural environments have a profound effect on a range of human behaviours and states, but most of those studies have examined how natural environments affect individuals rather than interactions. We examined whether natural environments affect communication between parents and their 3- to 4-year-old children. Using a novel experimental design, we show that parent-child communication is more responsive and connected in a natural environment compared to an indoor environment. This study is the first to demonstrate that human communication is influenced by natural environments. Natural settings may constitute optimal environments for communication

When actions are carved at the joints [Letter]

We focus on Byrne & Russon's argument that program-level imitation is driven by hierarchically organized goals, and the related claim that to establish whether observed behavior is evidence of program-level imitation, empirical studies of imitation must use multi-stage actions as imitative tasks. We agree that goals play an indispensable role in the generation of action and imitative behavior but argue that multi-goal tasks, not only multi-stage tasks, reveal program-level imitation

Infants Attend Longer to Controlling versus Supportive Directive Speech

Directive communications play a critical role in infants’ and young children’s daily routines as they are regularly guided by close others. An extensive literature describes two ways of directing action, autonomy support and control. These motivational qualities are thought to be especially important to development since they shape well-being, learning, and exploration. The way in which such motivations are communicated through tone of voice may be especially important for preverbal infants, who respond to tone more than words. At present, there is little understanding of what role these motivational qualities expressed through tone of voice play in directive speech. To fill this gap in our understanding, we conducted an experiment with 39 infants ranging in age from 9-12 months. Infants were presented with validated directive phrases previously recorded by current day-care staff members in autonomy-supportive and controlling tones. Results showed infants attended longer to controlling tones than to autonomy-supportive ones, evidencing their ability to discriminate between motivational qualities at this early age. Implications for early learning and well-being are discussed

Caring for twins during infancy: A systematic review of the literature on sleeping and feeding practices amongst parents of twins

Objective To better investigate how the parents of twins approach the care of their infants in terms of feeding and sleeping practices after birth by examining the sleeping and feeding behaviours of parents with twin babies. Methods Three electronic databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, and ScienceDirect) were searched, and studies published between 2006 and 2016 were included. The Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (Moher et al., 2015) was adopted. Key findings were extracted and synthesised. Results Fourteen studies were included (three focused on sleeping, seven focused on feeding, and four focused on sleeping but considered feeding to be a secondary issue). Conclusion Caring for twins presents unique challenges that require specific choices to be made. The parents of twins could benefit from additional and specially developed advice from health professionals for considering and implementing adequate sleep and feeding practices that reduce parental fatigue and stress, as well as promote parent-twin relationships

The Early Social Cognition Inventory (ESCI):An Examination of its Psychometric Properties from Birth to 47 Months

Elena Hoicka, Burcu Soy Telli, and Eloise Prouten designed the research, and collected and coded the data. Elena Hoicka was the primary author, and analysed the data. Burcu Soy Telli wrote parts of the Method section, and Merideth Gattis wrote parts of the Introduction. Burcu Soy Telli, Merideth Gattis, George Leckie, William J. Browne, and Erika Nurmsoo edited and gave feedback on the manuscript, both in terms of content and analyses.Social cognition refers to a broad range of cognitive processes and skills that allow individuals to interact with and understand others, including a variety of skills from infancy through preschool and beyond, e.g., joint attention, imitation, and belief understanding. However, no measures examine socio-cognitive development from birth through preschool. Current test batteries and parent-report measures focus either on infancy, or toddlerhood through preschool (and beyond). We report six studies in which we developed and tested a new 21-item parent-report measure of social cognition targeting 0–47 months: the Early Social Cognition Inventory (ESCI). Study 1 (N = 295) revealed the ESCI has excellent internal reliability, and a two-factor structure capturing social cognition and age. Study 2 (N = 605) also showed excellent internal reliability and confirmed the two-factor structure. Study 3 (N = 84) found a medium correlation between the ESCI and a researcher-administered social cognition task battery. Study 4 (N = 46) found strong 1-month test–retest reliability. Study 5 found longitudinal stability (6 months: N = 140; 12 months: N = 39), and inter-observer reliability between parents (N = 36) was good, and children’s scores increased significantly over 6 and 12 months. Study 6 showed the ESCI was internally reliable within countries (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Trinidad and Tobago); parent ethnicity; parent education; and age groups from 4–39 months. ESCI scores positively correlated with household income (UK); children with siblings had higher scores; and Australian parents reported lower scores than American, British, and Canadian parents.University of Sheffield Women Academic Returners Program, University of Bristol Returning Carers Scheme Grant, Ministry of Education in Turkey

Foundations of attention sharing: orienting and responding to attention in term and preterm 5-month-old infants

Attention is the gateway to perceptual, cognitive, and socioemotional development in humans. We observed 104 5-month-old term and preterm infants and their mothers in social interactions to address three questions about the role of maturation in orienting and responding to attention. We used a fine-grained coding system to allow parallel comparisons across infant and maternal orienting, and sequential analysis to evaluate infant and maternal responding to attention. Orienting and responding to attention differed for attention to people versus objects, as did the relations between maturity and attention. We conclude that maturity contributes to orienting and responding to attention and that orienting and responding to attention are specific rather than homogenous. We discuss the implications of these conclusions for future studies of how attention influences cognitive and communicative development