Within arms reach: Physical proximity shapes mother-infant language exchanges in real-time

During everyday interactions, mothers and infants achieve behavioral synchrony at multiple levels. The ebb-and-flow of mother-infant physical proximity may be a central type of synchrony that establishes a common ground for infant-mother interaction. However, the role of proximity in language exchanges is relatively unstudied, perhaps because structured tasks—the common setup for observing infant-caregiver interactions—establish proximity by design. We videorecorded 100 mothers (U.S. Hispanic N = 50, U.S. Non-Hispanic N = 50) and their 13- to 23-month-old infants during natural activity at home (1-to-2 h per dyad), transcribed mother and infant speech, and coded proximity continuously (i.e., infants and mother within arms reach). In both samples, dyads entered proximity in a bursty temporal pattern, with bouts of proximity interspersed with bouts of physical distance. As hypothesized, Non-Hispanic and Hispanic mothers produced more words and a greater variety of words when within arms reach than out of arms reach. Similarly, infants produced more utterances that contained words when close to mother than when not. However, infants babbled equally often regardless of proximity, generating abundant opportunities to play with sounds. Physical proximity expands opportunities for language exchanges and infants’ communicative word use, although babies accumulate massive practice babbling even when caregivers are not proximal

The differential contribution of maternal and paternal values to social competence of preschoolers

Multivariate analyses were conducted to clarify the nature of the influences of parental values on social behaviours of kindergarteners in the context of sociodemographic variables and sex of participants. This study included 217 mothers and 172 fathers from the same families, who completed a socio-demographic questionnaire and a new Q-sort that assesses parental values on Individualism (IND)/Collectivism (COL) and Horizontal (HOR)/Vertical (VER) continuums.To test the hypothesis of an association between parental values and children’s behaviours, teachers also provided information about each child’s social competence, anger-aggression, and anxiety-withdrawal in kindergarten using the Social Competence and Behavior Scale. Parents shared a greater proportion of IND/COL than VER values and mothers were more likely to emphasise IND and COL values than fathers. Mothers within IND and COL groups had more socially competent kindergartners as reported by teachers. Considering the mixed results found in the literature regarding sex differences in parenting and behaviours of children, the present results suggested that examining more closely the system of parental values might offer valuable avenues for uture research on early childhood socialisation

Cross-Cultural Differences in Adult Theory of Mind Abilities: A Comparison of Native-English Speakers and Native-Chinese Speakers on the Self/Other Differentiation Task

Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to the ability to compute and attribute mental states to ourselves and other people. It is currently unclear whether ToM abilities are universal or whether they can be culturally influenced. To address this question, this research explored potential differences in engagement of ToM processes between two different cultures, Western (individualist) and Chinese (collectivist), using a sample of healthy adults. Participants completed a computerized false-belief task, in which they attributed beliefs to either themselves or another person, in a matched design, allowing direct comparison between ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ oriented conditions. Results revealed that both native-English speakers and native-Chinese individuals responded significantly faster to selforiented than other-oriented questions. Results also showed that when a trial required a ‘perspective-shift’, participants from both cultures were slower to shift from Self-to-Other than from Other-to-Self. Results indicate that, despite differences in collectivism scores, culture does not influence task-performance, with similar results found for both Western and non-Western participants, suggesting core and potentially universal similarities in the ToM mechanism across these two cultures

Mothers' beliefs about children's learning in Hong Kong and the United States: Implications for mothers' child-based worth

Chinese and American mothers’ beliefs about children’s learning and parents’ role in it were examined using notions salient in Chinese culture. Mothers from Hong Kong (n = 66) and the United States (n = 69) indicated their endorsement of the ideas that children’s learning reflects children’s morality, and parents’ support of children’s learning reflects parents’ love and duty. Mothers also reported on the extent to which their worth is based on children’s performance. Chinese (vs. American) mothers believed more that children’s learning reflects morality and parents’ support of children’s learning reflects love; these differences accounted for their feelings of worth being more dependent on children’s performance. Chinese (vs. American) mothers believed less that parents’ support is a duty.postprin

Speech and Language Outcomes in Low-SES Spanish-English Bilingual Preschoolers: The Role of Maternal Education

This paper presents a longitudinal examination of Spanish and English phonological, lexical, and morpho-syntactic abilities in 20 low-SES bilingual preschoolers with mothers who had either completed primary or secondary education in Spanish in their country of origin, Mexico. We focused on the link between maternal education and the following spontaneous production measures: 1) phonological accuracy as measured by Percent of Consonants Correct-Revised, 2) lexical variety as measured by Number of Different Words, and 3) utterance length as measured by Mean Length of Utterance in words; the relation between maternal education and spontaneous production was examined both a) at preschool entry, when children were on average 3;6 and dominant in Spanish, and b) a year later, after one year of exposure to the majority language (English) and culture. The results showed that although children of more educated mothers performed significantly better on all English measures than children of less educated mothers, maternal education was not related to Spanish outcomes. The same differences persisted a year later. These results suggest that maternal education may play a different, but long-lasting role in English compared to Spanish development possibly due to language input differences attributable to distinct cultural values and practices associated with different languages

Parenting and child adjustment: a comparison of Turkish and English families

The links between parenting and child behaviour in cultural context have received increasing research attention. We investigated the effect of parenting on child adjustment using a multi-method design, comparing English and Turkish families. The socioeconomically diverse samples included 118 English and 100 Turkish families, each with two children aged 4–8 years. Mothers completed questionnaires as well as parent–child interaction being assessed using a structured Etch-a-Sketch task with each child separately. Children were interviewed about their relationships with their mothers using the Berkeley Puppet Interview. Multiple-group Confirmatory Analysis was used to test Measurement Invariance across groups, and a multi-informant approach was used to assess parenting. We found partial cross-cultural measurement invariance for parenting and child adjustment. Strikingly, the association between parenting and child adjustment was stronger among English families than Turkish families. Culturally distinct meanings of both parenting and child behaviour must be considered when interpreting their association

The challenges experienced by parents when parenting a child with hearing loss within a South African context

The purpose of the current study was to explore the challenges experienced by hearing parents when parenting a child with hearing loss. Using a qualitative purposive sampling design, interviews were conducted with 13 parents (9 mothers, 4 fathers) residing in Cape Town, South Africa. Four salient themes emerged, namely: 1) communication is difficult, hard, and frustrating; 2) lack of knowledge and information about hearing loss makes it difficult to parent; 3) little or no support makes for a lonely journey; and 4) support identified by parents for parents. The findings of the study have important implications for collaboration and partnerships between parents and health and family practitioners within South Africa for the design and development of supportive interventions for parents parenting a child with hearing loss

Play and Developmental Outcomes in Infant Siblings of Children with Autism

We observed infant siblings of children with autism later diagnosed with ASD (ASD siblings; n = 17), infant siblings of children with autism with and without other delays (Other Delays and No Delays siblings; n = 12 and n = 19, respectively) and typically developing controls (TD controls; n = 19) during a free-play task at 18 months of age. Functional, symbolic, and repeated play actions were coded. ASD siblings showed fewer functional and more non-functional repeated play behaviors than TD controls. Other Delays and No Delays siblings showed more non-functional repeated play than TD controls. Group differences disappeared with the inclusion of verbal mental age. Play as an early indicator of autism and its relationship to the broader autism phenotype is discussed

How well do European child-related leave policies support the caring role of fathers?

Our chapter analyses the extent to which European countries (1) recognize the caring responsibilities of fathers toward their children and (2) value fathers' caring role. To do so, we analyze the designs of individual leave policies and reflect on them by assessing available data on leave uptake by fathers in 13 European countries. Our results show that there is great variation in child-related leave designs across Europe. Our findings, in line with previous work, underscore the importance of generous individual non-transferable leave entitlements. Moreover, our findings bring forward aspects of leave designs that are rarely discussed when considering fathers' leave uptake. Our results indicate that generous non-transferable leave rights should be paired with (a) clearly defined leave periods for fathers, (b) individual entitlement to benefits, and (c) greater scope for flexibility to increase the attractiveness of child-related leave and to strengthen fathers' position when negotiating their childcare leave.</p