Developmental Psychology

Edgar, Elizabeth V.; Todd, James Torrence; Eschman, Bret; Hayes, Timothy; Bahrick, Lorraine E.

doi: 10.1037/dev0001549pmid: 37199930

Recent research has demonstrated that individual differences in infant attention to faces and voices of women speaking predict language outcomes in childhood. These findings have been generated using two new audiovisual attention assessments appropriate for infants and young children, the Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP) and the Intersensory Processing Efficiency Protocol (IPEP). The MAAP and IPEP assess three basic attention skills (sustaining attention, shifting/disengaging, intersensory matching), as well as distractibility, deployed in the context of naturalistic audiovisual social (women speaking English) and nonsocial events (objects impacting a surface). Might children with differential exposure to Spanish versus English show different patterns of attention to social events on these protocols as a function of language familiarity? We addressed this question in several ways using children (n = 81 dual-language learners; n = 23 monolingual-language learners) from South Florida, tested longitudinally across 3–36 months. Surprisingly, results indicated no significant English language advantage on any attention measure for children from monolingual English versus dual English–Spanish language environments. Second, for dual-language learners, exposure to English changed across age, decreasing slightly from 3–12 months and then increasing considerably by 36 months. Furthermore, for dual-language learners, structural equation modeling analyses revealed no English language advantage on the MAAP or IPEP as a function of degree of English language exposure. The few relations found were in the direction of greater performance for children with greater Spanish exposure. Together, findings indicate no English language advantage for basic multisensory attention skills assessed by the MAAP or IPEP between the ages of 3 to 36 months.

Langley, Matthew D.; Van Houghton, Kaitlin; McBeath, Michael K.; Lucca, Kelsey

doi: 10.1037/dev0001553pmid: 37358541

Adults have a vertical attention bias (VAB) that directs their focus toward object tops and scene bottoms. This is consistent with focusing attention on the informative aspects and affordances of the environment, and generally favoring a downward gaze. The smaller size of children, combined with their relatively limited interactions with objects and scenes, could lead them to have diminished bias that only gradually develops. Alternatively, an early coupling of attention to action space could lead to VAB similar to adults. The current study investigates the developmental timeline of VAB, comparing 4–7-year-olds to adults. Participants (N = 50 children, 53 adults; 58% White, 22% Asian, 6% Black, 2% Native American, and 12% other) observed naturalistic photographic triptychs (48 objects, 52 scenes, all online). They made similarity judgments comparing a test figure to two flanking figures containing either the same top or same bottom. We found that (a) children and adults exhibit a common VAB for object tops and scene bottoms and (b) the adult bias is stronger than children’s. Exploratory analyses revealed the same age trend within children, with VAB increasing with age, and asymptoting at the adult level at age 8. This demonstrates that despite age and body size differences that could make the environment for young children relatively disparate from adults, their perceptual system is already largely attuned to their individual interactive action space, with only minor continuing residual development. The findings support that, like adults, young children focus their attention on their action space and body level affordances, where they interact more with tops of objects and bottoms of scenes.

Koepp, Andrew E.; Watts, Tyler W.; Gershoff, Elizabeth T.; Ahmed, Sammy F.; Davis-Kean, Pamela; Duncan, Greg J.; Kuhfeld, Megan; Vandell, Deborah L.

doi: 10.1037/dev0001533pmid: 37276139

Leib, Elena R.; Starr, Ariel; Younger, Jessica Wise; , ; Bunge, Silvia A.; Uncapher, Melina R.; Rosenberg-Lee, Miriam

doi: 10.1037/dev0001557pmid: 37166866

The present study tests two predictions stemming from the hypothesis that a source of difficulty with rational numbers is interference from whole number magnitude knowledge. First, inhibitory control should be an independent predictor of fraction understanding, even after controlling for working memory. Second, if the source of interference is whole number knowledge, then it should hinder fraction understanding. These predictions were tested in a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of U.S. children (N = 765; 337 female) in Grades 3 (ages 8–9), 5 (ages 10–11), and 7 (ages 12–13) who completed a battery of computerized tests. The fraction comparison task included problems with both shared components (e.g., 3/5 > 2/5) and distinct components (e.g., 2/3 > 5/9), and problems that were congruent (e.g., 5/6 > 3/4) and incongruent (e.g., 3/4 > 5/7) with whole number knowledge. Inhibitory control predicted fraction comparison performance over and above working memory across component and congruency types. Whole number knowledge did not hinder performance and instead positively predicted performance for fractions with shared components. These results highlight a role for inhibitory control in rational number understanding and suggest that its contribution may be distinct from inhibiting whole number magnitude knowledge.

Devlin, Brianna L.; Hornburg, Caroline Byrd; McNeil, Nicole M.

doi: 10.1037/dev0001559pmid: 37166867

A longitudinal study was conducted to identify unique sources of individual differences in later understanding of the equal sign as a relational symbol of equivalence (i.e., formal understanding of mathematical equivalence). The sample included 141 children from a mid-sized city in the Midwestern United States (Mage = 6 years, 2 months in kindergarten; 88 boys, 53 girls; 71% white, 8% Hispanic or Latine, 7% Black, 3% Asian, 11% multiracial or other race/ethnicity; 42% qualified for free/reduced lunch). Children were assessed on three categories of skills in kindergarten including number knowledge, relational thinking, and executive functioning. These skills were hypothesized to provide a foundation for a formal understanding of mathematical equivalence (assessed in second grade) by preventing a specific, narrow misunderstanding of the equal sign that hinders learning. Results showed that kindergarten relational thinking, particularly tasks assessing nonsymbolic equivalence understanding, uniquely and positively predicted formal understanding of mathematical equivalence and negatively predicted the specific misunderstanding of the equal sign in second grade, controlling for IQ, gender, and free/reduced lunch status. Exploratory analyses unpacking the categories of skills into individual tasks also indicated specific areas of kindergarten instructional focus that may help children construct understanding of mathematical equivalence in future years.

Bustamante, Andres S.; Bermudez, Vanessa N.; Ochoa, Karlena D.; Belgrave, Ashlee B.; Vandell, Deborah Lowe

doi: 10.1037/dev0001546pmid: 37326529

High-quality early childcare and education (ECE) has demonstrated long-term associations with positive educational and life outcomes and can be particularly impactful for children from low-income backgrounds. This study extends the literature on the long-term associations between high-quality caregiver sensitivity and responsiveness and cognitive stimulation (i.e., caregiving quality) in ECE settings and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in high school. Using the 1991 National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (n = 1,096; 48.6% female; 76.4% White, 11.3% African American, 5.8% Latine, 6.5% other), results demonstrated that caregiving quality in ECE was associated with reduced disparities between low- and higher-income children’s STEM achievement and school performance at age 15. Disparities in STEM school performance (i.e., enrollment in advanced STEM courses and STEM grade point average) and STEM achievement (i.e., Woodcock–Johnson cognitive battery) were reduced when children from lower-income families experienced more exposure to higher caregiving quality in ECE. Further, results suggested an indirect pathway for these associations from caregiving quality in ECE to age 15 STEM success through increased STEM achievement in Grades 3 through 5 (ages 8–11 years). Findings suggest that community-based ECE is linked to meaningful improvements in STEM achievement in Grades 3 through 5 which in turn relates to STEM achievement and school performance in high school, and caregiving quality in ECE is particularly important for children from lower-income backgrounds. This work has implications for policy and practice positioning caregivers’ cognitive stimulation and sensitivity in ECE settings across the first 5 years of life as a promising lever for bolstering the STEM pipeline for children from lower-income backgrounds.

Choe, Daniel Ewon; Deer, LillyBelle K.; Hastings, Paul D.

doi: 10.1037/dev0001540pmid: 37199926

Prenatal and postpartum depression are highly prevalent worldwide, and emerging evidence suggests they contribute to impairments in children’s executive functions. Studies of maternal depression, however, have focused on the postpartum and postnatal periods with relatively less consideration of prenatal influences on child development. This study of the large population-based Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children U.K. cohort estimates latent classes of maternal depression across the prenatal, postpartum, and postnatal periods to capture heterogeneity in the developmental timing and length of maternal depression, as well as to test whether latent classes differ in children’s executive function impairments in middle childhood. Repeated measures latent class analysis yielded five groups demonstrating unique patterns of change in maternal depression from pregnancy through early childhood (n = 13,624). Latent classes differed in executive functions at age 8 among a subsample of children (n = 6,870). Children exposed to chronic maternal depression beginning in utero showed the most impairments in inhibitory control while accounting for child sex, verbal IQ, parents’ highest education level, and average family income in childhood. The critical roles of the timing and length of children’s exposure to maternal depression are discussed in relation to executive function development, prevention, and intervention.

Malamut, Sarah T.; Salmivalli, Christina

doi: 10.1037/dev0001544pmid: 37347895

Victimization during school years can have detrimental effects on individuals’ adjustment, lasting even into adulthood. In the current study, we examine whether there is an indirect effect of victimization on adult depression and aggression, via sad and angry rumination about past victimization. Participants included 1,319 Finnish individuals (59.5% identified as women; 97.4 native Finns) who were followed from adolescence into adulthood (Mage = 25.78, SD = 1.35). Victimization was indirectly associated with adult depression and aggression, through sad and angry ruminations, respectively. The findings suggest that intervention efforts targeting rumination could help victimized individuals avoid lasting ill effects from their experiences.

Nikstat, Amelie; Beam, Christopher R.; Riemann, Rainer

doi: 10.1037/dev0001567pmid: 37347896

Behavior genetic methods are useful for examining mechanisms underlying the interaction between genetic and family environmental factors of internalizing problem behavior (INT). Previous twin studies, however, have shown little consistency in interaction patterns, depending on type and operationalization of measured environments. The aim of the current study was to explore different gene-by-environment interaction patterns among different family-level environmental risk factors and resources known to correlate with INT. Using an empirical-based approach, we combined various indicators of the family environment to derive four dimensions: positive parenting, negative parenting, lack of parental resources, and socioeconomic status. We then used a genetically informed design of twins raised in the same family to test whether interaction patterns followed a diathesis stress or vantage sensitivity model formulation. The sample consisted of 2,089 twin pairs and their families from two twin birth cohorts (ages 11 and 17) participating in Wave 1 of the German TwinLife study of social inequalities. In line with a vantage sensitivity pattern of interaction and with the bioecological model of development (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994), evidence for a general mechanism of gene–environment interaction with increasing nonshared environmental variance for more adverse and less propitious family conditions was found. In preadolescence, parenting behavior had a greater moderating influence on INT compared to general family conditions like socioeconomic status. Interventions for INT that directly involve parents, thus, may be more important in preadolescent populations whereas individual interventions for adolescents may be more successful if they are adapted to different levels of socioeconomic status.

Tein, Jenn-Yun; Wang, Frances L.; Oro, Veronica; Kim, Hanjoe; Shaw, Daniel; Wilson, Melvin; Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn

doi: 10.1037/dev0001543pmid: 37199932

This study is a secondary data analysis that extends knowledge about the effects of the early childhood Family Check-Up (FCU) intervention to trajectories of general psychopathology problems (p factor) across early and middle childhood, and effects on adolescent psychopathology and polydrug use. The Early Steps Multisite study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT00538252) is a randomized controlled trial of the FCU and consists of a large, racially and ethnically diverse sample of children who grew up in low-income households in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Eugene, Oregon; and Charlottesville, Virginia (n = 731; 49% female; 27.6% African American, 46.7% European American, 13.3% Hispanic/Latinx). To represent a comorbid presentation of internalizing and externalizing problems, we fit a bifactor model that included a general psychopathology (p) factor at eight ages in early childhood (ages 2–4), middle childhood (ages 7.5–10.5), and adolescence (age 14). Latent growth curve modeling was conducted to examine trajectories of the p factor across ages within the developmental periods of early and middle childhood. The effects of FCU on the reductions in growth in the childhood p factor had cascading effects on adolescent p factor (i.e., within-domain effect) and polydrug use (i.e., across-domain effect). Findings underscore the utility of the early FCU in preventing a host of maladaptive adolescent outcomes across diverse settings and populations.