An initial investigation of neonatal neuroanatomy, caregiving, and levels of disorganized behavior.

Attachment disorganization is a risk factor for difficulties in attention, social relationships, and mental health. Conceptually, attachment disorganization may indicate a breakdown in fear regulation resulting from repeated exposure to frightening maternal care. In addition, past research has examined the influence of stress-inducing contextual factors and/or child factors upon the development of disorganization.

Maternal sensitivity during infancy and the regulation of startle in preschoolers.

Caregiving insensitivity and fear dysregulation predict anxiety symptoms in children. It is unclear, however, whether sensitive parental care during infancy predicts fear regulation later in childhood. To address this question, we asked whether observed maternal sensitivity, measured at 6 months, predicts 42-month-old children's laboratory-induced fear responses (n=213) during a fear-eliciting episode.

The role of ethnicity and socioeconomic status in Southeast Asian mothers' parenting sensitivity.

Past research indicates that socioeconomic status (SES) accounts for differences in sensitivity across ethnic groups. However, comparatively little work has been conducted in Asia, with none examining whether ethnicity moderates the relation between SES and sensitivity. We assessed parenting behavior in 293 Singaporean citizen mothers of 6-month olds (153 Chinese, 108 Malay, 32 Indian) via the Maternal Behavioral Q-Sort for video interactions.

Analysis of Item-Level Bias in the Bayley-III Language Subscales: The Validity and Utility of Standardized Language Assessment in a Multilingual Setting.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to improve standardized language assessments among bilingual toddlers by investigating and removing the effects of bias due to unfamiliarity with cultural norms or a distributed language system.

Method: The Expressive and Receptive Bayley-III language scales were adapted for use in a multilingual country (Singapore). Differential item functioning (DIF) was applied to data from 459 two-year-olds without atypical language development.

The influence of CHRNA4, COMT, and maternal sensitivity on orienting and executive attention in 6-month-old infants.

Despite claims concerning biological mechanisms sub-serving infant attention, little experimental work examines its underpinnings. This study examines how candidate polymorphisms from the cholinergic (CHRNA4 rs1044396) and dopaminergic (COMT rs4680) systems, respectively indicative of parietal and prefrontal/anterior cingulate involvement, are related to 6-month-olds' (n=217) performance during a visual expectation eye-tracking paradigm. As previous studies suggest that both cholinergic and dopaminergic genes may influence susceptibility to the influence of other genetic and environmental factors, we further examined whether these candidate genes interact with one another and/or with early caregiving experience in predicting infants' visual attention.

Back to basics: a bilingual advantage in infant visual habituation.

Comparisons of cognitive processing in monolinguals and bilinguals have revealed a bilingual advantage in inhibitory control. Recent studies have demonstrated advantages associated with exposure to two languages in infancy. However, the domain specificity and scope of the infant bilingual advantage in infancy remains unclear.