Effect of Maternal Responsiveness on Young Infants' Social Bidding-Like Behavior during the Still Face Task

Caregiver greeting to infants under 6 months already reflects emerging differences in those later diagnosed with autism

As infants develop, caregivers adjust their behaviour to scaffold their infant's emerging skills, such that changes in infants' social abilities are expected to elicit changes in caregiver behaviour. We examined whether changes in the probability of infant-directed caregiving behaviour-specifically, greeting, a ubiquitous signal used by caregivers to initiate reciprocal interactions-differ between infant-caregiver dyads with an infant later diagnosed with autism and dyads with a neurotypically developing infant during infants' first 6 months. Using longitudinal data from 163 dyads, we found that caregivers in autism dyads (n = 40) used greeting less and at later infant ages than caregivers with a neurotypically developing infant (neurotypical dyads, n = 83). Caregivers in dyads with infants at elevated familial genetic likelihood for autism who did not receive an autism diagnosis (EL-non-autism dyads, n = 40) showed no differences in greeting compared with neurotypical dyads. Socioeconomic status partially mediated the difference between autism and neurotypical dyads. These findings show that autism and socioeconomic status were associated with the mutually adapted dynamics of dyadic interaction beginning in the first postnatal weeks. Importantly, differences in caregiver greeting observed in autism dyads are not interpreted as suboptimal behaviour from caregivers but rather indicate how early emerging social differences related to autism, years before overt features are present, may alter social learning opportunities elicited by the infant.

Annual Research Review: 'There, the dance is - at the still point of the turning world' - dynamic systems perspectives on coregulation and dysregulation during early development

During development we transition from coregulation (where regulatory processes are shared between child and caregiver) to self-regulation. Most early coregulatory interactions aim to manage fluctuations in the infant's arousal and alertness; but over time, coregulatory processes become progressively elaborated to encompass other functions such as sociocommunicative development, attention and executive control. The fundamental aim of coregulation is to help maintain an optimal 'critical state' between hypo- and hyperactivity. Here, we present a dynamic framework for understanding child-caregiver coregulatory interactions in the context of psychopathology. Early coregulatory processes involve both passive entrainment, through which a child's state entrains to the caregiver's, and active contingent responsiveness, through which the caregiver changes their behaviour in response to behaviours from the child. Similar principles, of interactive but asymmetric contingency, drive joint attention and the maintenance of epistemic states as well as arousal/alertness, emotion regulation and sociocommunicative development. We describe three ways in which active child-caregiver regulation can develop atypically, in conditions such as Autism, ADHD, anxiety and depression. The most well-known of these is insufficient contingent responsiveness, leading to reduced synchrony, which has been shown across a range of modalities in different disorders, and which is the target of most current interventions. We also present evidence that excessive contingent responsiveness and excessive synchrony can develop in some circumstances. And we show that positive feedback interactions can develop, which are contingent but mutually amplificatory child-caregiver interactions that drive the child further from their critical state. We discuss implications of these findings for future intervention research, and directions for future work.

More than fear: Contributions of biobehavioral synchrony and infants' reactivity to cooperative care

We present two challenges to the fearful ape hypothesis: (1) biobehavioral synchrony precedes and moderates the effects of fear on cooperative care, and (2) cooperative care emerges in a more bidirectional manner than Grossmann acknowledges. We present evidence demonstrating how dyadic differences in co-regulation and individual differences in infants' reactivity shape caregivers' responses to infant affect.

Infant distractibility from social events mediates the relation between maternal responsiveness and infant language outcomes

Research demonstrates that contingent and appropriate maternal responsiveness to infant requests and bids for attention leads to better language outcomes. Research also indicates that infants who are less distracted by irrelevant competing stimulation and attend efficiently to audiovisual social events (e.g., faces and voices) show better language outcomes. However, few studies have assessed relations between maternal responsiveness, infant attention to faces and voices, and distractibility, and how together these factors lead to early language outcomes. A newly developed audiovisual protocol, the Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP; Bahrick et al., 2018), allows researchers to examine individual differences in attention to faces and voices and distractibility, and to assess relations with other variables. At 12 months, infants (n = 79) in an ongoing longitudinal study participated in the MAAP to assess intersensory matching of synchronous faces and voices and attention to an irrelevant competing visual distractor event. They also were observed in a brief play interaction to assess infant bids for attention and maternal responsiveness (accept, redirect, or ignore). At 18 months, receptive and expressive language were assessed using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning. Several noteworthy findings emerged: 1) mothers were generally responsive, accepting 74% and redirecting 14% of infant bids, 2) infants who had a greater number of their bids redirected by mothers, and who had better intersensory matching of synchronous faces and voices, showed less attention to the distractor, and 3) infants who showed less attention to the distractor had better receptive language. Findings demonstrate that maternal redirecting of infant attention by mothers who are generally responsive may promote better infant attentional control (lower distractibility) which in turn predicts better receptive language in toddlers.

Learning how to learn from social feedback: The origins of early vocal development

Infants' prelinguistic vocalizations reliably organize vocal turn-taking with social partners, creating opportunities for learning to produce the sound patterns of the ambient language. This social feedback loop supporting early vocal learning is well-documented, but its developmental origins have yet to be addressed. When do infants learn that their non-cry vocalizations influence others? To test developmental changes in infant vocal learning, we assessed the vocalizations of 2- and 5-month-old infants in a still-face interaction with an unfamiliar adult. During the still-face, infants who have learned the social efficacy of vocalizing increase their babbling rate. In addition, to assess the expectations for social responsiveness that infants build from their everyday experience, we recorded caregiver responsiveness to their infants' vocalizations during unstructured play. During the still-face, only 5-month-old infants showed an increase in vocalizing (a vocal extinction burst) indicating that they had learned to expect adult responses to their vocalizations. Caregiver responsiveness predicted the magnitude of the vocal extinction burst for 5-month-olds. Because 5-month-olds show a vocal extinction burst with unfamiliar adults, they must have generalized the social efficacy of their vocalizations beyond their familiar caregiver. Caregiver responsiveness to infant vocalizations during unstructured play was similar for 2- and 5-month-olds. Infants thus learn the social efficacy of their vocalizations between 2 and 5 months of age. During this time, infants build associations between their own non-cry sounds and the reactions of adults, which allows learning of the instrumental value of vocalizing.

Influences of infants' and mothers' contingent vocal responsiveness on young infants' vocal social bids in the Still Face Task

Infants' social bids in the still face phase of the Still Face Task demonstrate their emerging sense of self agency as these behaviors happen in the absence of the partner's social overtures. The study examined the role of infants' contingent responsiveness to their mothers in social interactions on their social bidding to the mother when she becomes unresponsive. Social bids are non-distress vocalizations or smiles while looking at the unresponsive partner. Infants and their mothers longitudinally engaged in the Still Face Task when infants were one, two, and three months. At two months, infant non-distress vocalizations and smiles and contingent vocal and smiling responsiveness increased in the initial interactive phase and vocal and smile social bids increased in the still face phase. Infant contingent vocal responsiveness predicted infant vocal social bids but infant contingent smiling responsiveness did not predict infant smile social bids. Infant contingent vocal responsiveness was a stronger predictor than infant non-distress vocalizations per se of infant vocal social bids at two and three months. However, maternal contingent vocal responsiveness was the primary predictor of infant vocal social bids at these ages. Maternal contingent responsiveness to infant behavior allows infants to sense their agency in affecting their mothers' behavior. Yet infants are active participants, becoming contingently responsive to their mothers, which facilitates their awareness that they are effective agents in instigating social interaction, as demonstrated by social bids.

Still-face redux: Infant responses to a classic and modified still-face paradigm in proximal and distal care cultures

Literature on infant emotion is dominated by research conducted in Western, industrialized societies where early socialization is characterized by face-to-face, vocal communication with caregivers. There is a dearth of knowledge of infant emotion in the context of social interaction outside of the visual and vocal modalities. In a three-population cross-cultural comparison, we used the still-face task to measure variation in behavior among infants from proximal care (practicing high levels of physical contact) communities in Bolivia and distal care (emphasizing vocal and visual interaction) communities in the U.S. and Fiji. In a modified version of the face-to-face still-face (FFSF), Study 1, infants in the U.S. and Fiji displayed the typical behavioral response to the still-face episode: increased negative affect and decreased social engagement, whereas infants in Bolivia showed no change. For tactile behavior, infants in Bolivia showed an increase in tactile self-stimulation from the interaction episode to the still-face episode, whereas U.S. infants showed no change. In Study 2, we created a novel body-to-body version of the still-face paradigm ("still-body") with infants in US and Bolivia, to mimic the near-constant physical contact Bolivian infants experience. The U.S. and Bolivian infant response was similar to Study 1: US infants showed decreased positive affect and increased negative affect and decreased social engagement from the interaction to the still-body episode and Bolivian infants showed no change. Notably, there were overall differences in infant behaviors between the two paradigms (FFSF and Still-Body). Infants in Bolivia and the U.S. showed increased positive facial affect during the FFSF paradigm in comparison with the Still-Body paradigm. Our results demonstrate the need for more globally representative developmental research and a broader approach to infant emotion and communication.

Intersubjectivity and the Emergence of Words

Intersubjectivity refers to two non-verbal intersubjective relations infants experience during their first year that are precursors to the emergence of words. Trevarthen, a pioneer in the study of intersubjectivity, referred to those relations as primary and secondary intersubjectivity. The former, a dyadic coordination between the infant and her caregiver, begins at birth. The latter, a triadic coordination that develops around 9 months, allows the infant and a caregiver to share attention to particular features of the environment. Secondary intersubjectivity is crucial for an infant’s ability to begin to produce words, at around 12 months. Much research on the social and cognitive origins of language has focused on secondary intersubjectivity. That is unfortunate because it neglects the fact that secondary intersubjectivity and the emergence of words are built on a foundation of primary intersubjectivity. It also ignores the evolutionary origins of intersubjectivity and its uniquely human status. That unique status explains why only humans learn words. This article seeks to address these issues by relating the literature on primary intersubjectivity, particularly research on bi-directional and contingent communication between infants and mothers, to joint attention and ultimately to words. In that context, we also discuss Hrdy’s hypothesis about the influence of alloparents on the evolution of intersubjectivity.

Integration of Facial Expression and Gaze Direction in Individuals with a High Level of Autistic Traits

Background. We investigated whether individuals with high levels of autistic traits integrate relevant communicative signals, such as facial expression, when decoding eye-gaze direction. Methods. Students with high vs. low scores on the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) performed a task in which they responded to the eye directions of faces, presented on the left or the right side of a screen, portraying different emotional expressions. Results. In both groups, the identification of gaze direction was faster when the eyes were directed towards the center of the scene. However, in the low AQ group, this effect was larger for happy faces than for neutral faces or faces showing other emotional expressions, whereas participants from high AQ group were not affected by emotional expressions. Conclusions. These results suggest that individuals with more autistic traits may not integrate multiple communicative signals based on their emotional value.

Why do we hunger for touch? The impact of daily gentle touch stimulation on maternal-infant physiological and behavioral regulation and resilience

We report the impact of a Gentle Touch Stimulation (GTS) program. Forty-three mothers provided daily 10-min GTS with C-tactile (CT) afferent optimal stroking touch, for 4 weeks to their 3-12 weeks old infants. CT-afferents are cutaneous unmyelinated, low-threshold mechanosensitive nerves hypothesized to underly the regulatory impact of affective touch. We compared physiological and behavioral responses during a no-touch-baseline (BL), static-touch-baseline (BL-T), intervention/control (GTS/CTRL), Still Face (SF) and Reunion (RU) condition for GTS-infants versus a control-group (CTRL) at the start (T1) and end of (T2) of the program. We collected mother-infant ECG, respiration, cortisol, video-recordings, and diary-reports. At T1, physiological arousal significantly increased during SF in both groups, that is, decreased respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and R-R interval (RRI). At T2, GTS-infants showed significantly increased RSA, RRI, decreased respiration during GTS, buffering SF-arousal and allowing complete recovery during RU; CTRL-infants showed higher SF-arousal and small recovery, under initial BL-levels. Maternal cardio-respiratory showed a metabolic investment during RU. Cortisol and behavioral analyses showed higher arousal in CTRL-infants than GTS-infants at T2. We suggest that the combination of phasic short-term and tonic long-term responses to CT-optimal stroking touch, delivered in a structured daily manner, contribute to the building of infant stress regulation and resilience.

Toddler emotion expressions and emotional traits: Associations with parent-toddler verbal conversation

The present study examines how toddler emotions may influence their own or their parents' participation in parent-toddler verbal conversation. Limited, indirect evidence suggests that toddler positive emotions may encourage, whereas negative emotions may disrupt, parent-toddler verbal exchanges, but these hypotheses have not been tested directly. We investigated two aspects of toddler emotions- their emotion expressions and their emotional traits- and examined their relations with parent-toddler verbal conversation engagement. In a sample of families with 18-month-olds (N = 120), we used live, unstructured home observations of toddler emotion expressions and spontaneous parent-toddler verbalizations, and collected parent ratings of toddler temperament. We found that less surgent toddlers who expressed more frequent negative emotion attempted fewer verbalizations. Among all toddlers, those expressing positive emotion received more frequent parent verbal responses, and, unexpectedly, more failed parent attempts to engage their toddler in conversation. Parent-initiated conversation was unrelated to toddler emotion expressions or emotional traits. We discuss how best to integrate the study of early emotional and language development from a transactional perspective.

Neonatal Transitions in Social Behavior and Their Implications for Autism

Within the context of early infant-caregiver interaction, we review a series of pivotal transitions that occur within the first 6 months of typical infancy, with emphasis on behavior and brain mechanisms involved in preferential orientation towards, and interaction with, other people. Our goal in reviewing these transitions is to better understand how they may lay a necessary and/or sufficient groundwork for subsequent phases of development, and also to understand how the breakdown thereof, when development is atypical and those transitions become derailed, may instead yield disability. We review these developmental processes in light of recent studies documenting disruptions to early-emerging brain and behavior mechanisms in infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, shedding light on the brain-behavior pathogenesis of autism.

The functional architecture of mother-infant communication, and the development of infant social expressiveness in the first two months

By two-three months, infants show active social expressions during face-to-face interactions. These interactions are important, as they provide the foundation for later emotional regulation and cognition, but little is known about how infant social expressiveness develops. We considered two different accounts. One emphasizes the contingency of parental responsiveness, regardless of its form; the other, the functional architecture account, emphasizes the preparedness of both infants and parents to respond in specific ways to particular forms of behaviour in their partner. We videotaped mother-infant interactions from one to nine weeks, and analysed them with a micro-analytic coding scheme. Infant social expressiveness increased through the nine-week period, particularly after 3 weeks. This development was unrelated to the extent of maternal contingent responsiveness, even to infant social expressions. By contrast, specific forms of response that mothers used preferentially for infant social expressions-mirroring, marking with a smile- predicted the increase in these infant behaviours over time. These results support a functional architecture account of the perceptual and behavioural predispositions of infants and parents that allow young infants to capitalize on relatively limited exposure to specific parental behaviours, in order to develop important social capacities.