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This primer describes research on the development of motor behavior. We focus on infancy when basic action systems are acquired-posture, locomotion, manual actions, and facial actions-and we adopt a developmental systems perspective to understand the causes and consequences of developmental change. Experience facilitates improvements in motor behavior and infants accumulate immense amounts of varied everyday experience with all the basic action systems. At every point in development, perception guides behavior by providing feedback about the results of just prior movements and information about what to do next. Across development, new motor behaviors provide new inputs for perception. Thus, motor development opens up new opportunities for acquiring knowledge and acting on the world, instigating cascades of developmental changes in perceptual, cognitive, and social domains. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development Psychology > Motor Skill and Performance Neuroscience > Development.

Humans learn about the world through inductive reasoning, generalizing information about an individual to others in the category. Indeed, by infancy, monolingual children expect people who speak the same language (but not people who speak different languages) to be similar in their food preferences (Liberman et al., 2016). Here, we ask whether infants who are exposed to linguistic diversity are more willing to generalize information even across language-group lines. To test this, we ran an inductive inference task and collected data on exposure to linguistic diversity at the interpersonal and neighborhood levels. Infants with more linguistically diverse social networks were more likely to generalize a food preference across speakers of different languages. However, this relationship was not seen for neighborhood diversity. We discuss implications of this work on understanding the development of bias and its malleability based on early social experiences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Stressful events are inherently emotional. As a result, the ability to regulate emotions is critical in responding effectively to stressors. Differential abilities in the management of stress appear very early in life, compelling a need to better understand factors that may shape the capacity for emotion regulation (ER). Variations in both biologic and behavioural characteristics are thought to influence individual differences in ER development. We sought to determine the differential contributions of temperament and heart rate variability (HRV; an indicator of autonomic nervous system function) to infant resting state emotionality and emotional reactivity in response to a stressor at 6 months of age. Participants included 108 mother-infant dyads. Mothers completed a measure of infant temperament at 6 months postnatal. Mother and infant also participated in a standardized stressor (the Repeated Still Face Paradigm) at that time. Electrocardiographic data were acquired from the infant during a baseline resting state and throughout the stressor. Fast Fourier Transformation was used to analyse the high frequency (HF) domain of HRV, a measure of parasympathetic nervous system activity. Infant ER was measured via standardized coding of emotional distress behaviours from video-records at baseline and throughout the stressor. Severity of mothers' depressive symptoms was included as a covariate in analyses. Results of linear regression indicate that neither temperament nor HRV were associated significantly with an infant's emotional resting state, although a small effect size was found for the relationship between infant negative affectivity and greater emotional distress (β = 0.23, p = 0.08) prior to the stressor. Higher HF-HRV (suggesting parasympathetic dominance) was related to greater emotional distress in response to the stressor (β = 0.34, p = 0.009). This greater emotional reactivity may reflect a more robust capacity to mount an emotional response to the stressor when infants encounter it from a bedrock of parasympathetic activation. Findings may inform eventual markers for assessment of ER in infancy and areas for intervention to enhance infant management of emotions, especially during stressful events.

Unintentional injury represents a significant health threat to children, and infancy marks a particularly vulnerable stage. This multi-method study (questionnaire, diary) measured parents' (N = 143) use of three popular home-safety practices (teaching about safety, environment modification to reduce access to hazards, supervision) and child injury rates at two stages of motor development during infancy (sitting, walking). Associations between these three safety practices and parental beliefs (protectiveness needed, perceived benefits of the child experiencing minor injuries) were examined, as was the effectiveness of these three practices to prevent injury. Results revealed that different parental beliefs were associated with implementing different safety strategies at each motor development stage. Strategies were differentially effective depending on mobility status of the infant, with supervision being the only strategy that was effective to prevent injury at both motor development stages. Implications for developing safety messages to promote parents' injury-prevention strategies are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This primer describes research on the development of motor behavior. We focus on infancy when basic action systems are acquired—posture, locomotion, manual actions, and facial actions—and we adopt a developmental systems perspective to understand the causes and consequences of developmental change. Experience facilitates improvements in motor behavior and infants accumulate immense amounts of varied everyday experience with all the basic action systems. At every point in development, perception guides behavior by providing feedback about the results of just prior movements and information about what to do next. Across development, new motor behaviors provide new inputs for perception. Thus, motor development opens up new opportunities for acquiring knowledge and acting on the world, instigating cascades of developmental changes in perceptual, cognitive, and social domains. This article is categorized under:Cognitive Biology > Cognitive DevelopmentPsychology > Motor Skill and PerformanceNeuroscience > Development [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotions play an important role in fostering positive parenting and healthy child development. This qualitative study explored the affective experiences of racially diverse US fathers with low income across the prenatal, postnatal, and early childhood periods. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 24 fathers. Interview questions asked about fathers' early parenting experiences that elicit parenting emotions of different valence. Results from thematic analysis demonstrated activation of multiple emotions depending on different proximal and distal experiences. Specific to proximal experiences, fathers reported feeling both excited and anxious about pregnancy and joyful and disappointed at childbirth. Related to distal experiences, fathers reported feeling encouraged by their social support networks that further aid their parenting, but feeling marginalized given systematic barriers (e.g., societal bias, high incarceration rates of Black fathers). Most importantly, fathers' parenting emotions, especially negative ones, led to them resolving to stay involved in their children's lives, gaining a sense of responsibility, and changing behaviors to do right by their children. Fathers resorted to various coping strategies to regulate their negative emotions. Overall, fathers with low income are emotionally resilient. Infant and early childhood health professionals should support fathers' mental health to promote father‐child engagement and thus, ultimately, young children's mental health and wellbeing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socioemotional and referential communication are primary expressions of interpersonal engagement in infancy and beyond. Early socioemotional communication in dyadic interactions may form a foundation for triadic referential communication and gesture production, yet the role of temperament in moderating their association has not been examined. We investigated whether early socioemotional communication behaviors, and infant temperamental reactivity, were associated with later pointing production. Participants were 51 infants (45% girls) and both their parents (86.5% Dutch). Early infant socioemotional communication (production of smile, vocalizations, and gaze) was observed during separate home-based face-to-face interactions with mothers, fathers, and strangers at 4 and 8 months. At both ages, mothers and fathers reported on infant temperamental surgency and negative affectivity, and overall means were calculated. Referential communication (declarative pointing) was measured during structured lab-based observations at 12 and 15 months. Socioemotional and referential communication behaviors were microanalytically coded second by second. Poisson multilevel regression analyses indicated interaction effects between temperament and smile, vocalizations, and gazes to the adult's face with each partner in predicting pointing. High levels of infant temperamental surgency tended to enhance positive associations between early socioemotional communication behaviors with mothers and fathers and pointing. By contrast, high levels of negative affectivity tended to dampen associations between early communication behaviors with strangers and pointing. Results highlight the importance of infant socioemotional communication with diverse partners and the moderating role of temperamental reactivity in predicting referential communication. Public Significance Statement: Infant referential communication (e.g., the pointing gesture) is a foundation of early social cognition and language development, yet documented behavioral precursors of pointing are scant. This study indicates that in interaction with temperamental reactivity, early behavioral patterns of infant socioemotional communication (smile, vocalizations, gaze) with diverse partners (mother, father, stranger) predict pointing. High levels of temperamental surgency tended to enhance positive associations between early socioemotional communication behaviors with mothers and fathers and pointing, while high levels of negative affectivity dampened associations between early communication behaviors with strangers and pointing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the patterns, and consequences, of infant temperamental reactivity to novel sensory input in a large (N = 357; 271 in current analysis) and diverse longitudinal sample through two approaches. First, we examined profiles of reactivity in 4-month-old infants using the traditional theory-driven analytic approach laid out by Jerome Kagan and colleagues, and derived groups characterized by extreme patterns of negative reactivity and positive reactivity. We then used a theory-neutral, data-driven approach to create latent profiles of reactivity from the same infants. Despite differences in sample characteristics and recruitment strategy, we noted similar reactivity groups relative to prior cohorts. The current data-driven approach found four profiles: high positive, high negative, high motor, and low reactive. Follow-up analyses found differential predictions of internalizing, externalizing, dysregulation, and competence trajectories across 12, 18, and 24 months of life based on 4-month reactivity profiles. Findings are discussed in light of the initial formulation of early reactivity by Kagan and the four decades of research that has followed to refine, bolster, and expand on this approach to child-centered individual differences. Public Significance Statement: This study provides insights into the patterns and consequences of infant temperamental reactivity to novel sensory input, using both theory-driven and data-driven approaches. The findings demonstrate the predictive power of infant reactivity profiles in understanding socioemotional trajectories across the first 2 years of life. These results could inform early identification and intervention efforts aimed at optimizing child well-being in diverse populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scientific study of love underscores the importance of dyadic reciprocity in laying the foundation for infants' social development. While research establishes links between early reciprocity and children's social capacities, some infants appear to benefit from reciprocity more than others. A central feature of reciprocity is its contingent structure, that is, the extent to which maternal behaviors are temporally associated with and contingent upon infants' dynamically changing cues. As such, infants' sensitivity to social contingencies may define the extent to which an infant benefits from maternal reciprocity. The current study examined the role of infants' sensitivity to social contingency (SC) in moderating associations between early maternal reciprocity and subsequent infants' social behavior. The study followed 157 children (47% females), across the first year of life (4, 10, and 12 months) and at preschool age (48 months). Infants' SC at 4 and 10 months moderated the link between early maternal reciprocity and infants' prosocial behavior observed at 12 months. SC at 10 months moderated the link between early reciprocity and reported peer problems at 48 months. Maternal reciprocity predicted more helping behavior in infancy and fewer peer problems at preschool, but only for infants who displayed high SC. Findings highlight the contingent nature of reciprocal mother‐infant interactions revealing that an infant's sensitivity to breaks in social‐contingency moderates the developmental benefit of reciprocity. Future research is necessary to directly test the underlying mechanisms of these processes and better understand the individual characteristics of infants' sensitivity to social contingency and its' role in typical and atypical development. Research Highlights: Individual differences in infants' sensitivity to breaks in social contingencies may moderate the extent to which infants benefit from contingent reciprocal maternal behavior (i.e., maternal reciprocity).Maternal reciprocity predicted more helping behavior in infancy and fewer peer problems at preschool, but only for infants who displayed high sensitivity to breaks in social contingency.Findings highlight the contingent nature of reciprocal mother‐infant interactions revealing that infants' sensitivity to breaks in social‐contingency moderates the developmental benefit of reciprocity.Findings emphasize the need to develop measurement methods and direct empirical attention to the important yet understudied individual characteristic of infants' sensitivity to social contingency and its role in shaping social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Longitudinal research can assess how diverging development of multiple cognitive skills during infancy, as well as familial background, are related to the emergence of neurodevelopmental conditions. Sensorimotor and effortful control difficulties are seen in infants later diagnosed with autism; this study explored the relationships between these skills and autism characteristics in 340 infants (240 with elevated familial autism likelihood) assessed at 4–7, 8–10, 12–15, 24, and 36 months. We tested: (1) the relationship between parent‐reported effortful control (Rothbart's temperament questionnaires) and sensorimotor skills (Mullen Scales of Early Learning), using random intercept cross‐lagged panel modelling; (2) whether household income and maternal education predicted stable individual differences in cognition; (3) sensorimotor and effortful control skills as individual and interactive predictors of parent‐reported autism characteristics (Social Responsiveness Scale) at 3 years, using multiple regression; and (4) moderation of interactions by familial likelihood. Sensorimotor skills were longitudinally associated with effortful control at the subsequent measurement point from 12–15 months. Socioeconomic status indicators did not predict stable between‐infant differences in sensorimotor or effortful control skills. Effortful control skills were longitudinally related to 3‐year autism characteristics from the first year of life, with evidence for an interaction with sensorimotor skills at 24 months. Effects of effortful control increased with age and were particularly important for infants with family histories of autism. Results are discussed in relation to different theoretical frameworks: Developmental Cascades and Anterior Modifiers in the Emergence of Neurodevelopmental Disorders. We suggest a role for 24‐month effortful control in explaining the emergent autism phenotype. Research Highlights: Sensorimotor skills longitudinally predicted effortful control from 12–15 months onward but effortful control did not longitudinally predict sensorimotor skills during infancy.Measures of effortful control skills taken before the age of 1 predicted continuous variation in autism characteristics at 36 months, with associations increasing in strength with age.Effortful control (measured at 12–15 and 24 months) was a stronger predictor of 36‐month autism characteristics in infants with elevated familial likelihood for autism.The relationship between 24‐month sensorimotor skills and 36‐month autism characteristics was stronger in infants with weaker effortful control skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infancy is a sensitive period of development, during which experiences of parental care are particularly important for shaping the developing brain. In a longitudinal study of N = 95 mothers and infants, we examined links between caregiving behavior (maternal sensitivity observed during a mother–infant free‐play) and infants' neural response to emotion (happy, angry, and fearful faces) at 5 and 7 months of age. Neural activity was assessed using functional Near‐Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), a region involved in cognitive control and emotion regulation. Maternal sensitivity was positively correlated with infants' neural responses to happy faces in the bilateral dlPFC and was associated with relative increases in such responses from 5 to 7 months. Multilevel analyses revealed caregiving‐related individual differences in infants' neural responses to happy compared to fearful faces in the bilateral dlPFC, as well as other brain regions. We suggest that variability in dlPFC responses to emotion in the developing brain may be one correlate of early experiences of caregiving, with implications for social‐emotional functioning and self‐regulation. Research Highlights: Infancy is a sensitive period of brain development, during which experiences with caregivers are especially important.This study examined links between sensitive maternal care and infants' neural responses to emotion at 5–7 months of age, using functional near‐infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).Experiences of sensitive care were associated with infants' neural responses to emotion—particularly happy faces—in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a marker of self‐regulation, has been linked to developmental outcomes in young children. Although positive emotions may have the potential to facilitate physiological self‐regulation, and enhanced self‐regulation could underlie the development of positive emotions in early childhood, the relation between positive emotions and physiological self‐regulation in infancy has been relatively overlooked. The current study examined the bidirectional associations among maternal positive emotion, infant positive emotionality, and infant resting RSA across the first 18 months of life. We used data from the Longitudinal Attention and Temperament Study (LanTs; N = 309 in the current analysis) to test the within‐ and between‐person relations of study variables over time using a random‐intercepts cross‐lagged panel model. We found that infants with higher overall levels of positive emotionality also displayed greater resting RSA, and their mothers exhibited higher levels of positive emotion. However, there were negative cross‐lagged associations within‐person; higher than average infant positive emotionality predicted lower levels of infant resting RSA at the subsequent timepoint during early infancy, whereas higher than average infant RSA subsequently predicted decreased levels of infant positive emotionality later in infancy. Results highlight the importance of considering transactional relations between positive emotion and physiological self‐regulation in infancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Elucidating the dynamics of gene expression across developmental stages, including the genomic characteristics of brain expression during infancy, is pivotal in deciphering human psychiatric and neurological disorders and providing insights into developmental disorders. Results: Leveraging comprehensive human GWAS associations with temporal and spatial brain expression data, we discovered a distinctive co-expression cluster comprising 897 genes highly expressed specifically during infancy, enriched in functions related to the neuronal system. This gene cluster notably harbors the highest ratio of genes linked to psychiatric and neurological disorders. Through computational analysis, MYT1L emerged as a potential central transcription factor governing these genes. Remarkably, the infancy-specific expressed genes, including SYT1, exhibit prominent colocalization within human accelerated regions. Additionally, chromatin state analysis unveiled prevalent epigenetic markers associated with enhancer-specific modifications. In addition, this cluster of genes has demonstrated to be specifically highly expressed in cell-types including excitatory neurons, medial ganglionic eminence and caudal ganglionic eminence. Conclusions: This study comprehensively characterizes the genomics and epigenomics of genes specifically expressed during infancy, identifying crucial hub genes and transcription factors. These findings offer valuable insights into early detection strategies and interventions for psychiatric and neurological disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Methods Results Significance Epilepsy and intellectual disability are common in tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Although early life seizures and intellectual disability are known to be correlated in TSC, the differential effects of age at seizure onset and accumulated seizure burden on development remain unclear.Daily seizure diaries, serial neurodevelopmental testing, and brain magnetic resonance imaging were analyzed for 129 TSC patients followed from 0 to 36 months. We used machine learning to identify subgroups of patients based on neurodevelopmental test scores at 36 months of age and assessed the stability of those subgroups at 12 months. We tested the ability of candidate biomarkers to predict 36‐month neurodevelopmental subgroup using univariable and multivariable logistic regression. Candidate biomarkers included age at seizure onset, accumulated seizure burden, tuber volume, sex, and earlier neurodevelopmental test scores.Patients clustered into two neurodevelopmental subgroups at 36 months of age, higher and lower scoring. Subgroup was mostly (75%) the same at 12 months. Significant univariable effects on subgroup were seen only for accumulated seizure burden (largest effect), earlier test scores, and tuber volume. Neither age at seizure onset nor sex significantly distinguished 36‐month subgroups, although for girls but not boys there was a significant effect of age at seizure onset. In the multivariable model, accumulated seizure burden and earlier test scores together predicted 36‐month neurodevelopmental group with 82% accuracy and an area under the curve of .86.These results untangle the contributions of age at seizure onset and accumulated seizure burden to neurodevelopmental outcomes in young children with TSC. Accumulated seizure burden, rather than the age at seizure onset, most accurately predicts neurodevelopmental outcome at 36 months of age. These results emphasize the need to manage seizures aggressively during the first 3 years of life for patients with TSC, not only to promote seizure control but to optimize cognitive function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on the emergence of effects of socioeconomic inequality typically report that socioeconomic background is positively associated with early cognitive abilities. However, studies on looking behaviour in habituation tasks rarely investigate this association, although such tasks are standard in measuring cognitive abilities in infants. The current study aimed to explore the emergence and magnitude of the effects of socioeconomic background, as one aspect of socioeconomic inequality, on cognitive abilities in the first two years of life, using a dataset from a large-scale German cohort study. We modelled looking behaviour using growth curve modelling and found no significant effects at 7 months. However, we found positive effects of socioeconomic background on the initial looking time (intercept) and overall looking time at 17 months, but not on the looking decrement (slope). The results are discussed regarding the specificities of the data, as the habituation task was administered in a household setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study is the first to assess whether infants' developing social brains may be susceptible to the vicarious social experience of interparental positivity. Specifically, we explored whether infants' exposure to interparental positivity may vicariously shape their neural substrates of social development. Methods: In a sample of 45 infants (MAgeMonths = 11.01; 48.9% girls), infant left-frontal resting alpha electroencephalogram (EEG) asymmetry was derived as a reliable indicator of neural substrates linked to adaptive social development. Moreover, positive characteristics of the mother-father couple relationship were assessed both by means of observation and self-report by mother and father. Importantly, various relevant covariates were considered, including interparental negativity (observed and self-reported), as well as infants' direct caregiving experiences and duration of infant exposure to mother-father relationship-dynamics (parent-report). Results: Results indicated that higher levels of observed interparental positivity were associated with greater infant left-frontal alpha EEG asymmetry, even after accounting for covariates (ß's > 0.422). Discussion: The current study's results are first to suggest that positive vicarious social experiences in infants' day-to-day lives play a significant role for early neural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Shwachman–Diamond syndrome represents a clinically and genetically heterogeneous disorder. We report on an infant with a very severe, fatal clinical course caused by biallelic EFL1 variants: c.89A>G, p.(His30Arg), and c.2599A>G, p.(Asn867Asp). Functional analysis of patient‐derived B‐lymphoblastoid and SV40‐transformed fibroblast cell lines suggests that the compound heterozygous EFL1 variants impaired mature ribosome formation leading to compromised protein synthesis, ultimately resulting in a severe form of Shwachman–Diamond syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This study examined which parenting behaviors predict the development of infants’ empathic concern for others in distress. We distinguished between three forms of sensitive/responsive parenting: mothers' responsiveness to infant distress, their responsiveness to the infant's nondistress cues, and maternal expression of positive affect and affection in nondistress. Although in prior work these parenting behaviors were frequently combined, or subsumed under a single global construct, such as “sensitive responsiveness”, the three forms of parenting are theoretically distinct. We hypothesized that once all three were examined simultaneously, only responsiveness to distress would emerge as a unique predictor of empathy. A sample of 165 Israeli infants (50% girls) was assessed from 3 to 18 months. Parenting measures were coded from mother–infant interactions at 3 and 6 months, and infants’ empathic concern was assessed using three distressed stimuli at ages 3, 6, 12, and 18 months. Path analysis models revealed that, consistent with the hypothesis, only responsiveness to distress uniquely predicted infants' subsequent empathic concern, over and above the other forms of parenting and preexisting empathy levels; conversely, being responsive or affectionate when infants were not distressed did not predict their empathic abilities. The findings underscore the importance of differentiating between theoretically distinct forms of parenting, even when they are correlated. The discussion addresses the role of responsiveness to infants’ distress in the early development of empathic capacity, and highlights avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception (1945), written after his extensive research in psychology, anthropology, and the other social sciences and also after his intensive encounter with the thought of Husserl and Heidegger, is an attempt to leave those malevolent dualisms behind and replace them with a phenomenology that engages with beings as befits their essence and the conditions of their being: a phenomenology that no longer imposes on our experience a morally irresponsible and offensive ontology; a phenomenology that, instead, reminds us of our responsibility as guardians of nature and life and brings to light very new possibilities for ethical life, community, and dwelling on the earth of this planet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: As herpes simplex virus (HSV) in infancy is not a mandatory notifiable condition in Australia, completeness of ascertainment by the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit (APSU) has been difficult to evaluate to date. We evaluated case capture in Queensland (QLD) and Western Australia (WA) using statewide laboratory and clinical data and complementary surveillance data collected via the APSU. Methods: HSV polymerase chain reaction positive results in infants (0–3 months) from 2007 to 2017 were obtained from statewide public pathology providers in QLD and WA. Clinical data were extracted from patient records and compared to APSU reported cases. Results: A total of 94 cases of HSV disease in infancy (70 QLD; 24 WA) were identified from laboratory data sets, compared to 36 cases (26 QLD; 10 WA) reported to the APSU. In total there was 102 unique cases identified; 28 cases were common to both data sets (seven skin eye mouth (SEM) disease, 13 central nervous system (CNS) disease and eight disseminated disease). Active surveillance captured 35% (36/102) of cases overall including 74% (14/19) of CNS, 71% (10/14) of disseminated and 17% (12/69) of SEM disease cases, respectively. Surveillance reported cases had a higher case‐fatality rate compared to those not reported (14% vs. 3%, P = 0.038). Neurological sequelae at discharge were comparable between the groups. Conclusion: Active surveillance captures one third of hospitalised HSV cases in QLD and WA, including the majority with severe disease. However, morbidity and mortality remain high. Future studies on HSV will rely on observational studies. Enhanced case ascertainment through combined laboratory and surveillance data is essential for better understanding and improving outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crucial aspect of human social competence is the ability to spontaneously and rapidly infer from facial cues whether others are likely to approach us with friendliness or hostility—that is, trustworthiness. The rapid and automatic nature of these inferences has prompted the claim that they may originate from evolutionary pressures to detect potential threats, thus enhancing our chances of survival. However, the developmental origins of this social skill remain a topic of ongoing debate. Recent evidence shows that infants' brains and looking time behaviors differentiate between faces varying along the trustworthiness continuum, but the question about the nature of the facial cues they rely on remains open. In this review, we propose the spatial frequency (SF) filtering approach (i.e., the selective removal of spatial frequency bands from the image) as a useful tool for investigating this question, and specifically whether infants' discrimination of facial expressions of emotion share common visual and neural mechanisms with discrimination of facial cues associated with trustworthiness inferences. The SF filtering approach could shed light on the neural and perceptual mechanisms underlying trustworthiness perception in infancy, providing insights into whether and how these mechanisms change across development. The evidence gathered through this method would prove critical to the understanding of the developmental origins of trustworthiness perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human interpersonal capacities emerge from coordinated neural, biological, and behavioral activity unfolding within and between people. However, developmental research to date has allocated comparatively little focus to the dynamic processes of how social interactions emerge across these levels of analysis. Second-person neuroscience and dynamic systems approach together to offer an integrative framework for addressing these questions. This study quantified respiratory sinus arrhythmia and social behavior (∼360 observations per system) from 44 mothers and typically developing 9-month-old infants during a novel modified "still-face" (text message perturbation) task. Stochastic autoregression models indicate that the infant parasympathetic nervous system is coupled within and between people second by second and is sensitive to social context. Intraindividual, we found positive coupling between infants' parasympathetic nervous system activity and their social behavior in the subsequent second, but only during the moments and periods of active caregiver engagement. Between people, we found a bidirectional coregulatory feedback loop: Mothers' parasympathetic activity positively predicted that of their infant in the subsequent second, a form of synchrony that decreased during the text message perturbation and did not fully recover. Conversely, infant parasympathetic activity negatively predicted that of their mother at the subsequent second, a form of synchrony that was invariant over social context. Findings reveal unidirectional parasympathetic coupling within infants and a complementary allostatic feedback loop between mother and infant parasympathetic systems. They offer novel evidence of a dynamic, socially embedded parasympathetic system at previously undocumented timescales, contributing to both basic science and potential clinical targets to better support adaptive, multisystem social development. Public Significance Statement: This study investigated how the subconscious, "rest and digest" parasympathetic nervous system supports babies' abilities to interact with others. Results suggest that the parasympathetic system changes in real-time to help babies regulate their bodies to engage socially and that parasympathetic activity is synchronized between mothers and babies in a coregulatory fashion. Findings improve scientific knowledge and may, in the future, aid clinical efforts to support children's development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to compare the differences in postoperative complications and long-term bowel function outcomes between patients with rectosigmoid Hirschsprung disease (HD) who underwent transanal endorectal pull-through (TEPT) beyond infancy (age> 1 year of age) and those during infancy (≤ 1 year of age). Methods: All patients with rectosigmoid HD at Beijing Children's Hospital between January 2011 and December 2020 were analyzed retrospectively. They were divided into two groups based on age at TEPT: group A was defined as patients who performed TEPT beyond infancy (age>1 year of age), and group B as patients who performed TEPT during infancy (age ≤ 1 year of age). Clinical details were collected from medical records. Bowel function outcomes were assessed by the Rintala questionnaire (age ≥ 4 years). Results: A total of 339 patients were included: 216 (63.7%) who operated with TEPT beyond infancy (group A) and 123 (36.3%) during infancy (group B). Regarding postoperative complications, all patients suffering anastomosis leakage following TEPT (7/216, 3.2%) occurred in group A, and the rate of anastomosis leakage in group A was significantly higher than in group B (3.2% vs. 0.0%, p = 0.044). 228 patients (228/327, 69.7%) completed the Rintala questionnaire. There was no significant difference in long-term bowel function outcomes between the two groups. Conclusion: Compared with patients who performed TEPT during infancy, those beyond infancy are more likely to suffer anastomosis leakage. however, the long-term bowel function outcomes seem comparable. Type of Study: A retrospective single-center study. Level of evidence: III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Method Results Discussion Piaget's theory emphasizes the biological structures children utilize to make sense of their environment and based on those experiences become able to adapt. Many factors can intervene in the gradual and complex process of development, causing an array of issues both acute and chronic.Several studies have found that disability in the early months is a strong predictor of cognitive impairment in preschool. The presence of early functional anomalies may represent developmental delay and/or neurodevelopmental disorders.Understanding the risk factors and detecting such signs early on is important to prevent or minimize later cognitive, behavioral, and psychosocial problems. The study aims to emphasize how critical the early years are to a child's future cognitive, physical, emotional, and social development as well as their overall well‐being.In addition, the fact that crucial developmental stages can be hampered or obstructed by a variety of factors is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Methods Results Conclusion This study aims to analyse the developmental data from public health nurses (PHNs) to identify early indicators of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) in young children using Bayesian network (BN) analysis to determine factor combinations that improve diagnosis accuracy.The study cohort was 501 children who underwent health checkups at 18 and 36‐month. Data included demographics, pregnancy, delivery, neonatal factors, maternal interviews, and physical and neurological findings. Diagnoses were made by paediatricians and child psychiatrists using standardised tools. Predictive accuracy was assessed by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis.We identified several infant/toddler factors significantly associated with NDD diagnoses. Predictive factors included meconium‐stained amniotic fluid, 1 min Apgar score, and early developmental milestones. ROC curve analysis showed varying predictive accuracies based on evaluation timing. The 10‐month checkup was valid for screening but less reliable for excluding low‐risk cases. The 18‐month evaluation accurately identified children at NDD risk.The study demonstrates the potential of using developmental records for early NDD detection, emphasising early monitoring and intervention for at‐risk children. These findings could guide future infant mental health initiatives in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention is a fundamental cognitive mechanism whose primary function is to regulate and organize the flow of perceptions and actions shaping our mental life. Early cognitive models have highlighted aspects of sustained, selective, and executive control as essential components of attention. These three broad aspects can be further subdivided into subordinate operations, depending on whether the particular function is mostly driven by external stimulation (bottom-up attention) or relies on endogenous processes such as voluntary intentions or expectations (top-down attention). After several decades of cognitive neuroscience research, these different functions have been associated with specific circuits of brain regions. Based on the cognitive neuroscience framework, this paper presents a theory of attention development and discusses behavioral and brain evidence regarding the development of attention function during the first years of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myiasis is a parasitic infestation of fly larvae caused by dipterous larvae that live in the host's dead or living tissues. This study reported the first case of urogenital myiasis in infants from Iran caused by Lucilia sericata. The 10-month-old boy was taken to the hospital by his mother due to restlessness and abdominal pain. During the examination, motile and live larvae were observed in the penis area. The patient had no history of infectious disease or immune system deficiency, and his blood tests were normal. The entomological analysis found that the source of this myiasis was Lucilia sericata fly larvae. The report of such cases highlighted the importance of physical examination and the awareness of physicians in dealing with myiasis, as well as the necessity of educating mothers on the hygiene of the living environment and child care in rural areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communication is commonly viewed as connecting people through conscious symbolic processes. Infants have an immature communication toolbox, raising the question of how they form a sense of connectedness. In this article, we propose a framework for infants' communication, emphasizing the subtle unconscious behaviors and autonomic contingent signals that convey drives, emotions, and a sense of connection, facilitating the formation of primal social bonds. Our developmental model emphasizes the importance of diverse modes of communication and their interplay in social interactions during infancy. The framework leverages three levels of communication—autonomic, behavioral, and symbolic—and their different maturational pathways. Initially, infants' social communication relies on autonomic responses and a dynamic behavioral repertoire, which evolve during the first year of life, supporting the emergence of symbolic communication. This extended communication framework highlights infants' role as proactive communicating agents and allows for tracing communicative developmental cascades back to their origins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infants are immersed in a world of sounds from the moment their auditory system becomes functional, and experience with the auditory world shapes how their brain processes sounds in their environment. Across cultures, speech and music are two dominant auditory signals in infants' daily lives. Decades of research have repeatedly shown that both quantity and quality of speech input play critical roles in infant language development. Less is known about the music input infants receive in their environment. This study is the first to compare music input to speech input across infancy by analyzing a longitudinal dataset of daylong audio recordings collected in English‐learning infants' home environments, at 6, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months of age. Using a crowdsourcing approach, 643 naïve listeners annotated 12,000 short snippets (10 s) randomly sampled from the recordings using Zooniverse, an online citizen‐science platform. Results show that infants overall receive significantly more speech input than music input and the gap widens as the infants get older. At every age point, infants were exposed to more music from an electronic device than an in‐person source; this pattern was reversed for speech. The percentage of input intended for infants remained the same over time for music while that percentage significantly increased for speech. We propose possible explanations for the limited music input compared to speech input observed in the present (North American) dataset and discuss future directions. We also discuss the opportunities and caveats in using a crowdsourcing approach to analyze large audio datasets. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/lFj%5fsEaBMN4 Research Highlights: This study is the first to compare music input to speech input in infants' natural home environment across infancy.We utilized a crowdsourcing approach to annotate a longitudinal dataset of daylong audio recordings collected in North American home environments.Our main results show that infants overall receive significantly more speech input than music input. This gap widens as the infants get older.Our results also showed that the music input was largely from electronic devices and not intended for the infants, a pattern opposite to speech input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychological researchers have been criticized for making broad presumptions about human behavior based on limited sampling. In part, presumptive generalizability is reflected in the limited representation of sociodemographic variation in research reports. In this analysis, we examine time‐trends in reporting of a key sociodemographic construct relevant to many aspects of child development—socioeconomic status (SES)—across six mainstream developmental journals (Infancy, Child Development, Developmental Science, Developmental Psychology, Infant and Child Development, and Infant Behavior & Development) between 2016 and 2022. Findings point to limited reporting of SES across developmental journals and across time. Reporting rates varied significantly by region and by topic of development. In terms of specific indicators of SES, there was consistent use of income and caregiver education as SES indicators. The epistemic costs of the lack of integration of socio‐economic factors in developmental research are addressed. Pathways to greater integration of SES are proposed. Research Highlights: We analyzed reporting and representation of socioeconomic status in published studies on early child development.A large proportion of published studies did not report any socio‐economic information.Suggestions for greater attention to socioeconomic status are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyday caregiver‐infant interactions are dynamic and multidimensional. However, existing research underestimates the dimensionality of infants' experiences, often focusing on one or two communicative signals (e.g., speech alone, or speech and gesture together). Here, we introduce "infant‐directed communication" (IDC): the suite of communicative signals from caregivers to infants including speech, action, gesture, emotion, and touch. We recorded 10 min of at‐home play between 44 caregivers and their 18‐ to 24‐month‐old infants from predominantly white, middle‐class, English‐speaking families in the United States. Interactions were coded for five dimensions of IDC as well as infants' gestures and vocalizations. Most caregivers used all five dimensions of IDC throughout the interaction, and these dimensions frequently overlapped. For example, over 60% of the speech that infants heard was accompanied by one or more non‐verbal communicative cues. However, we saw marked variation across caregivers in their use of IDC, likely reflecting tailored communication to the behaviors and abilities of their infant. Moreover, caregivers systematically increased the dimensionality of IDC, using more overlapping cues in response to infant gestures and vocalizations, and more IDC with infants who had smaller vocabularies. Understanding how and when caregivers use all five signals—together and separately—in interactions with infants has the potential to redefine how developmental scientists conceive of infants' communicative environments, and enhance our understanding of the relations between caregiver input and early learning. Research Highlights: Infants' everyday interactions with caregivers are dynamic and multimodal, but existing research has underestimated the multidimensionality (i.e., the diversity of simultaneously occurring communicative cues) inherent in infant‐directed communication.Over 60% of the speech that infants encounter during at‐home, free play interactions overlap with one or more of a variety of non‐speech communicative cues.The multidimensionality of caregivers' communicative cues increases in response to infants' gestures and vocalizations, providing new information about how infants' own behaviors shape their input.These findings emphasize the importance of understanding how caregivers use a diverse set of communicative behaviors—both separately and together—during everyday interactions with infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand transactional associations between mothers' biological stress responsivity and parenting behaviors, we examined bidirectional effects between maternal cortisol reactivity to observing their children during distress-eliciting paradigms and harsh parenting across infancy and toddlerhood using longitudinal data from the Family Life Project (N = 1,292, 41.5% African American). Children completed a series of distress-eliciting laboratory paradigms when they were 7, 15, and 24 months old, and mothers observed their children during the paradigms. Maternal cortisol reactivity was computed as a residualized change score from baseline to 20 min postparadigm, controlling for the time of day the saliva sample was collected. Harsh parenting was measured using five items from the Home Observation Measurement of the Environment inventory. A random-intercept cross-lagged panel model revealed that increases in maternal cortisol reactivity at 15 months predicted subsequent increases in harsh parenting at 24 months. Similarly, increases in harsh parenting at 15 months predicted increases in maternal cortisol reactivity at 24 months. Findings indicate that increased cortisol reactivity to children's distress in early toddlerhood may indicate a risk for harsh parenting in late toddlerhood and that increases in harsh parenting can also negatively impact mothers' stress physiology over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joint attention (JA) is an early-developing behavior that allows caregivers and infants to share focus on an object. Deficits in JA, as measured through face-following pathways, are a defining feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and are observable as early as 12 months of age in infants later diagnosed with ASD. However, recent evidence suggests that JA may be achieved through hand-following pathways by children with and without ASD. Development of JA through multimodal pathways has yet to be studied in infants with an increased likelihood of developing ASD. The current study investigated how 6-, 9- and 12-month-old infants with (FH+) and without (FH-) a family history of ASD engaged in JA. Parent-infant dyads played at home while we recorded the interaction over Zoom and later offline coded for hand movements and gaze. FH+ and FH- infants spent similar amounts of time in JA with their parents, but the cues available before JA were different. Parents of FH+ infants did more work to establish JA and used more face-following than hand-following pathways compared to parents of FH- infants, likely reflecting differences in infant motor or social behavior. These results suggest that early motor differences between FH+ and FH- infants may cascade into differences in social coordination.

Abstract Background Elucidating the dynamics of gene expression across developmental stages, including the genomic characteristics of brain expression during infancy, is pivotal in deciphering human psychiatric and neurological disorders and providing insights into developmental disorders. Results Leveraging comprehensive human GWAS associations with temporal and spatial brain expression data, we discovered a distinctive co-expression cluster comprising 897 genes highly expressed specifically during infancy, enriched in functions related to the neuronal system. This gene cluster notably harbors the highest ratio of genes linked to psychiatric and neurological disorders. Through computational analysis, MYT1L emerged as a potential central transcription factor governing these genes. Remarkably, the infancy-specific expressed genes, including SYT1, exhibit prominent colocalization within human accelerated regions. Additionally, chromatin state analysis unveiled prevalent epigenetic markers associated with enhancer-specific modifications. In addition, this cluster of genes has demonstrated to be specifically highly expressed in cell-types including excitatory neurons, medial ganglionic eminence and caudal ganglionic eminence. Conclusions This study comprehensively characterizes the genomics and epigenomics of genes specifically expressed during infancy, identifying crucial hub genes and transcription factors. These findings offer valuable insights into early detection strategies and interventions for psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Abstract Purpose This study aimed to compare the differences in postoperative complications and long-term bowel function outcomes between patients with rectosigmoid Hirschsprung disease (HD) who underwent transanal endorectal pull-through (TEPT) beyond infancy (age> 1 year of age) and those during infancy (≤ 1 year of age). Methods All patients with rectosigmoid HD at Beijing Children’s Hospital between January 2011 and December 2020 were analyzed retrospectively. They were divided into two groups based on age at TEPT: group A was defined as patients who performed TEPT beyond infancy (age>1 year of age), and group B as patients who performed TEPT during infancy (age ≤ 1 year of age). Clinical details were collected from medical records. Bowel function outcomes were assessed by the Rintala questionnaire (age ≥ 4 years). Results A total of 339 patients were included: 216 (63.7%) who operated with TEPT beyond infancy (group A) and 123 (36.3%) during infancy (group B). Regarding postoperative complications, all patients suffering anastomosis leakage following TEPT (7/216, 3.2%) occurred in group A, and the rate of anastomosis leakage in group A was significantly higher than in group B (3.2% vs. 0.0%, p = 0.044). 228 patients (228/327, 69.7%) completed the Rintala questionnaire. There was no significant difference in long-term bowel function outcomes between the two groups. Conclusion Compared with patients who performed TEPT during infancy, those beyond infancy are more likely to suffer anastomosis leakage. however, the long-term bowel function outcomes seem comparable. Type of Study A retrospective single-center study. Level of evidence III.

Myiasis is a parasitic infestation of fly larvae caused by dipterous larvae that live in the host’s dead or living tissues. This study reported the first case of urogenital myiasis in infants from Iran caused by Lucilia sericata. The 10-month-old boy was taken to the hospital by his mother due to restlessness and abdominal pain. During the examination, motile and live larvae were observed in the penis area. The patient had no history of infectious disease or immune system deficiency, and his blood tests were normal. The entomological analysis found that the source of this myiasis was Lucilia sericata fly larvae. The report of such cases highlighted the importance of physical examination and the awareness of physicians in dealing with myiasis, as well as the necessity of educating mothers on the hygiene of the living environment and child care in rural areas.

BackgroundMaternal depressive symptoms in pregnancy may affect offspring health through prenatal programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. The biological mechanisms that explain the associations between maternal prenatal depressive symptoms and offspring HPA axis regulation are not yet clear. This pre-registered investigation examines whether patterns of maternal depressive symptoms in pregnancy are associated with infant cortisol reactivity and whether this association is mediated by changes in placental corticotropin-releasing hormone (pCRH).MethodA sample of 174 pregnant women completed assessments in early, mid, and late pregnancy that included standardized measures of depressive symptoms and blood samples for pCRH. Infant cortisol reactivity was assessed at 1 and 6 months of age.ResultsGreater increases in maternal depressive symptoms in pregnancy were associated with higher cortisol infant cortisol reactivity at 1 and 6 months. Greater increases in maternal depressive symptoms in pregnancy were associated with greater increases in pCRH from early to late pregnancy which in turn were associated with higher infant cortisol reactivity.ConclusionsIncreases in maternal depressive symptoms and pCRH over pregnancy may contribute to higher infant cortisol reactivity. These findings help to elucidate the prenatal biopsychosocial processes contributing to offspring HPA axis regulation early in development.

The development of visual attention in infancy is typically indexed by where and how long infants look, focusing on changes in alerting, orienting, or attentional control. However, visual attention and looking are both complex systems that are multiply determined. Moreover, infants visual attention, looking, and learning are intimately connected. Infants learn to look, reflecting cascading effects of changes in attention, the visual system and motor control, as well as the information infants learn about the world around them. Furthermore infants looking behavior provides the input infants use to perceive and learn about the world. Thus, infants look to learn about the world around them. A deeper understanding of development will be gained by appreciating the cascading effects of changes across these intertwined domains.

Exposure to early-life adversity (ELA) and iron deficiency early in life are known risk factors for suboptimal brain and socioemotional development. Iron deficiency may arise from and co-occur with ELA, which could negatively affect development. In the present study, we investigated whether ELA is associated with iron deficiency in infants receiving no iron supplementation. This study is a secondary analysis of extant data collected in the 1990s; participants were healthy infants from working-class communities in Santiago, Chile (N = 534, 45.5% female). We measured stressful life events, maternal depression, and low home support for child development during infancy and assessed iron status when the infant was 12 months old. Slightly more than half of the infants were iron-deficient (51%), and 25.8% were iron-deficient anemic at 12 months. Results indicated that ELA was associated with lower iron levels and iron deficiency at 12 months. The findings are consistent with animal and human prenatal models of stress and iron status and provide evidence of the association between postnatal ELA and iron status in humans. The findings also highlight a nutritional pathway by which ELA may impact development and present a nutritionally-focused avenue for future research on ELA and psychopathology.

Infantile Tremor Syndrome (ITS) is a complex neurological syndrome that affects exclusively breastfed infants, typically seen between 9 to 12 months of age. However, in the present case, it started at the ages of three months and four months, respectively. ITS is characterised by the presence of megaloblastic anaemia-like features, developmental regression, and the onset of tremors. Here, authors report two cases of ITS, whereby megaloblastic anaemia was present because of drug (phenytoin) intake in mothers. Phenytoin intake in mothers leads to low serum vitamin B12 levels in both the mother as well as the baby. Early onset of ITS in progeny has very rarely reported in the literature. Exclusive breastfeeding is generally considered nutritionally sufficient for infants below six months of age, and the onset of ITS is typically associated with the improper introduction of weaning foods beyond six months. However, in the present cases, although the babies were exclusively breastfed, they developed nutritional deficiencies that manifested as early onset ITS. Phenytoin intake and the associated vitamin B12 deficiency in the mothers are proposed as the causes of this presentation. Such an early presentation is also associated with severe pneumonia and was found to be fatal in one of the two reported causes. The authors would like to make a pertinent point that if pregnant mothers are taking any drugs that can lead to vitamin B12 deficiency, they should ideally be checked with relevant investigations and receive supplements if required, to prevent potentially fatal outcomes in their children.

Research on gesture development has mostly focused on home environments. Little is known about early communicative development in other relevant contexts, such as early-year-schools. These settings, rich in diverse educative situations, objects, and communicative partners, provide a contrast to parent–child interactions, complementing our understanding of gesture development. This study aims to describe the development of the first gestures in the infant classrooms of early-years-schools, focusing on ostensive gestures of showing and giving—their emergence, communicative functions, and relation to the subsequent emergence of pointing. We conducted a longitudinal, observational investigation analyzing the gestures of 21 children (7–13 months). Over 7 months, we observed and registered children's daily interactions in the classroom, employing a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach to analyze the types and functions of their gestures. We found a significant increase and diversification of gesture types and functions with age. Gestures followed a proximal–distal developmental course. Ostensive gestures were the earliest and most prevalent gestures observed. There was a correlation between the frequency of these gestures, with ostensive gestures fulfilling communicative functions later observed in pointing. Our qualitative analysis revealed the progressive construction of ostensive gestures into spontaneous, complex, and conventional forms of communication. These results highlight the important role of ostensive gestures in early communicative development, paving the way for distal communication through pointing and relating to the origin of intentional communication. More broadly, these findings have significant implications for early educational practices and show the value of conducting research on developmental processes in early education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Via a research–practice partnership centering community partners' needs and goals in the research design, we examined how parent, infant, and social‐contextual characteristics relate to shared book reading frequency and perceptions of Reach Out and Read (ROR), a national physician‐to‐family program. Background: Shared book reading is associated with higher quality parent–child interactions and enhanced cognitive and socioemotional development. However, only a small percentage of families share books with their infants daily. Understanding factors related to engagement in book sharing is necessary to create developmental messaging that reflects families' experiences. Method: Parents (N = 70) in a southeastern U.S. state were recruited from two participating pediatric clinics and responded to an online survey. Regression analyses examined significant infant, parent, and social‐contextual predictors of shared book reading frequency and perceived ROR value. Results: Findings indicated that parents' insurance, mental health symptoms, and perceptions of the parent‐provider relationship significantly predicted shared book reading frequency. Perceived ROR value was best predicted by parents' mental health symptoms. Implications: Strengthening the parent–provider relationship and talking with families about their needs and experiences with their infants may support clinicians in partnering with families around literacy promotion and early relational health. Conclusion: Results suggest the value of considering socioeconomic status, parental mental health symptoms, and the parent–provider relationship when promoting early literacy and relationship‐building experiences during infancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objective To evaluate the influence of environmental factors and prematurity relating to juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM), its course and refractoriness to treatment. Methods A case-control study with 35 patients followed up at a tertiary hospital and 124 healthy controls, all residents of São Paulo. Patients were classified according to monocyclic, polycyclic or chronic disease courses and refractoriness to treatment. The daily concentrations of pollutants (inhalable particulate matter-PM10, sulfur dioxide-SO2, nitrogen dioxide-NO2, ozone-O3 and carbon monoxide-CO) were provided by the Environmental Company of São Paulo. Data from the population were obtained through a questionnaire. Results Fifteen patients had monocyclic courses, and 19 polycyclic/chronic courses. Eighteen patients were refractory to treatment. Maternal occupational exposure to inhalable agents (OR = 17.88; IC 95% 2.15–148.16, p = 0.01) and exposure to O3 in the fifth year of life (third tertile > 86.28µg/m3; OR = 6.53, IC95% 1.60–26.77, p = 0.01) were risk factors for JDM in the multivariate logistic regression model. The presence of a factory/quarry at a distance farther than 200 meters from daycare/school (OR = 0.22; IC 95% 0.06–0.77; p = 0.02) was a protective factor in the same analysis. Prematurity, exposure to air pollutants/cigarette smoke/sources of inhalable pollutants in the mother’s places of residence and work during the gestational period were not associated with JDM. Prematurity, maternal exposure to occupational pollutants during pregnancy as well as patient’s exposure to ground-level pollutants up to the fifth year of life were not associated with disease course and treatment refractoriness. Conclusion Risk factors for JDM were maternal occupational exposure and exposure to O3 in the fifth year of life.

Background: Whereas considerable insight has been gained and progress made in optimum feeding in early infant feeding same cannot be said with nutrition in late infancy. Tacking challenges associated with nutrition in late infancy demands that extant practices and their shortcomings are exposed. Objectives: To evaluate and document practices regarding feeding in late infancy in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria. Methods: Using a community- based household survey involving three representative political wards in Egor Local Government Area of Benin City, feeding practices in late infancy were evaluated using a mix of structured and non-structured, pre-tested questionnaires on 522 mothers of infants aged >6months to 11 months. This was done between June and September, 2009. Results: The age range of mothers was 17-48 years. Diverse ethnic groups were represented with the Binis constituting the largest (48.6%). Bottle feeding rate (BOTFR) was 2.55% and Bottle feeding practice was unassociated with maternal occupation (X 2 = 2.741; p=0.740) and family socio- economic status (X2=10.145; p=0.930). Timely complimentary feeding rate (TCFR) was very high (92.7%). Delayed introduction of complimentary feeding was very low (3.6%). Maize gruel (pap) was the commonest (76.6%) complementary food utilized and commonly (99.5%) this was enriched with a variety of other items with milk as the commonest item used. Fish was the commonest (41.0%) animal product used as complimentary food. Use of animal feeds was however generally low and their use was uninfluenced by family socio-economic status (X2 =5.424, p=0.066). Conclusions/Recommendations: Bottle feeding rate remains unacceptably high even into late infancy. Factors fostering this should be exposed and tackled because of the dangers inherent in the practice. Timely complimentary feeding practice is encouraging and needs to be supported and sustained for its benefits.

Abstract Childhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with disparities in development and health, possibly through adaptations in children’s brain function. However, it is not clear how early in development such neural adaptations might emerge. This study examined whether prenatal family socioeconomic status, operationalized as family income and average years of parental education, prospectively predicts individual differences in infant resting electroencephalography (EEG; theta, alpha, beta, and gamma power) at approximately 1 month of age (N = 160). Infants of mothers reporting lower family income showed more lower-frequency (theta) and less higher-frequency (beta and gamma) power. These associations held when adjusting for other prenatal and postnatal experiences, as well as infant demographic and health-related factors. In contrast, parental education was not significantly associated with infant EEG power in any frequency band. These data suggest that lower prenatal family income is associated with developmental differences in brain function that are detectable within the first month of life.

Aim: Compared with children without orofacial disorders, children with a habitual lack of mouth closure and mouth breathing show less frequent and reduced or absent facial expressions. The facial feedback hypothesis states that affective sensation is enhanced by mimic involvement. In this randomized cross-sectional study with and without orofacially disordered children, we investigated the effect of lack of mouth closure on the strength of emotions related to joy, sadness and fear in children. We aimed to determine whether kindergarten and primary school-age children with a lack of mouth closure are less emotionally involved. Materials and Method: We used facial feedback as an indicator to measure affect intensity in children with and without orofacial disorders. For this purpose, we modified the experimental design of Strack et al. (Strack et al. in J Pers Soc Psychol 54:768–777, 1988), in which the subjects were asked to hold a pencil exclusively with their teeth (experimental group 1, "joy"), with their lips (experimental group 2, "sadness" and "fear") or with their nondominant hand (control group). Instead of cartoons, ten medium-funny animal pictures were presented individually in a predefined order to be judged on a Likert scale. The allocation to the groups was implemented using a randomized procedure, independent of the diagnosis, age and sex of the children. The only exclusion criteria were the presence of surgical scars in the orofacial area and cerebral palsy. Results: A total of 414 children aged 4 to 17 years were studied for facial feedback, with orofacial disorders such as open mouth posture, tongue thrust, myofunctional disorder, craniomandibular dysfunction (CMD) and speech motor disorders diagnosed in 223 subjects. The significance tests showed that in all age groups, children with orofacial disorders rated the joke content of the animal pictures significantly lower than did children without orofacial disorders (4- to 6-year-olds: p value = 0.01, T value = 2.33, confidence = 99%; 7- to 8-year-olds: p value = 0, T value = 4.98, 100% confidence; 9- to 17-year-olds: p value = 0, T value = 2.87, 100% confidence). This finding indicates that children with a lack of mouth closure and other orofacial disorders not only express less pleasure with the help of facial expressions but also feel less pleasure. Moreover, the experimental setup used in this work, which has been modified for children, can be used to test facial feedback in young subjects. Conclusion: In our study, we focused on the interplay between physical and emotional development in children. If left untreated, children with a lack of oral closure may not only show deviations in the orofacial area later on, but also in their emotionality. We endeavored to highlight the importance of treating children with orofacial disorders at an early age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent theories of socio‐moral development assume that humans evolved a capacity to evaluate others' social actions in different kinds of interactions. Prior infant studies found both reaching and visual preferences for the prosocial over the antisocial agents. However, whether the attribution of either positive or negative valence to agents' actions involved in an aggressive chasing interaction can be inferred by both reaching behaviors and visual attention deployment (i.e., disengagement of visual attention) is still an open question. Here we presented 7‐month‐old infants (N = 92) with events displaying an aggressive chasing interaction. By using preferential reaching and an attentional task (i.e., overlap paradigm), we assessed whether and how infants evaluate aggressive chasing interactions. The results demonstrated that young infants prefer to reach the victim over the aggressor, but neither agent affects visual attention. Moreover, such reaching preferences emerged only when dynamic cues and emotional face‐like features were congruent with agents' social roles. Overall, these findings suggested that infants' evaluations of aggressive interactions are based on infants' sensitivity to some kinematic cues that characterized agents' actions and, especially, to the congruency between such motions and the face‐like emotional expressions of the agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stress in parents has a significant impact on parenting and infant's development. However, few studies have examined cross‐sectional and longitudinal links on risk and resilience of burdened families. Thus, this study aimed to investigate subjective risk and resilience factors on family well‐being. Data stem from the 2015 nationwide study "Children in Germany" ("Kinder in Deutschland" – KiD 0–3). Parents of children aged zero to 3 years (N = 8.063) were recruited from random probability‐sampled paediatric clinics (n = 271) across Germany. Risk and resilience variables such as parents' perceived stress (PSS‐4), competence, isolation and attachment (PSI), as well as parental inner anger (items from CAP), relationship quality (DAS‐4) and the child's negative emotionality (items from SGKS) were assessed at baseline in addition to demographic variables to predict parents' mental health (PHQ‐4) and negative emotionality of the child at baseline (T1) and in the 2‐year follow‐up (T2) using linear regression models. At baseline, parents' mental health was predicted by inner anger, the child's negative emotionality and being a single parent (R2 = 45.1%) at baseline, but only by parenting competence at the two‐year‐follow‐up (R2 = 25.1%). The child's negative emotionality was predicted (R2 = 27.5%) by the child's age, and parental inner anger and competence, attachment, perceived stress, mental health as well as education background. At two‐year‐follow‐up, the child's age, single parenthood, social welfare benefit, child's negative emotionality at baseline, relationship quality and competence were significant predictor variables (R2 = 22.8%). This study highlights the impact of specific risk and resilience factors not only on parents' mental health but also the child's negative emotionality in the short and long‐term in early childhood. Universal, but also selective prevention programs should increase parents' resilience (e.g., focusing on self‐efficacy, competence, coping strategies). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]