Beyond the “Cinderella effect”

Categorizing the cries of infants with ASD versus typically developing infants: A study of adult accuracy and reaction time

BACKGROUND

The cries of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) contain atypical acoustic features. The cries of typically developing infants elicit automatic adult responses, but little is known about how the atypical cries of children with ASD affect the speed with which adults process them.

METHOD

We used a reaction time (RT) categorical task to analyze adults' categorization of typically developing cries, atypical (ASD) cries, mammalian animal cries, and environmental noise control sounds. 40 nonparent women (M age = 27 years) were instructed to categorize acoustic stimuli as human infant cries or non-human sounds as quickly as possible.

RESULTS

The RTs for correctly categorizing the cries of children with ASD (M = 831ms, SEM = 27) were slower than RTs for typically developing child cries (M = 680ms, SEM = 6) as well as mammalian animal cries (801ms, SEM = 11) and environmental noise control sounds (M = 692ms, SEM = 10).

CONCLUSIONS

This difference may reflect difficulties in adults' perceiving and processing atypical cries of children with ASD, and the findings may have implications for the parent-child relationship and for the quality of care children with ASD receive.

Expanding the Model of Human Nature Underlying Self-control Theory: Implications for the Constructs of Self-control and Opportunity

Self-control theory holds that human nature consists of selfish impulses whose satisfaction often entails offending. Modern behavioural science has discerned emotional systems and cognitive biases underlying tendencies to engage in prosocial and self-directed behaviours, which themselves predict offending. Many of these tendencies appear in the construct of self-control, but are not sufficiently dealt with by life-course criminology. This paper presents an expanded model of human nature that implies that self-control is factorially-complex, containing self-regulation; prosociality (tendencies to form social bonds and engage in social reciprocity); and self-direction (tendencies to work on one's own long-term behalf without external sanctions). This model also suggests that the construct of opportunity should be expanded to include opportunities for prosocial and self-directed behaviours in addition to crime and deviance.

Profiles of Maternal Care Observed in a Group of Brazilian Mothers: an Exploratory Study

The aim of this study is to characterize profiles of maternal care in a sample of Brazilian mothers, using a culturalbiological perspective. Participants were 315 women who had at least one child younger than six years-old. They were selected from six Brazilian states. In each state, two groups of mothers were studied, one from the capital and one from a small city. They were interviewed and answered scales on allocentrism, social support, adult attachment, and practices of childcare. Mothers' characteristics, the type of context (capital vs. small city), and reported childcare practices were used in a Tree analysis. A Correspondence analysis was performed using the four clusters obtained and mothers' answers regarding their youngest child. Univariate GLM analyses were performed to compare mothers in the four clusters in terms of their scores on the different scales. Four maternal profiles presenting distinctive patterns of association between mothers' characteristics and care practices displayed to the youngest child were identified. We conclude that maternal care is a multi-determined phenomenon and that the method employed in this study can give insights into how the combination of diverse social-biological factors can result in a set of childcare practices.

Diferenças no investimento materno em função de variáveis socioambientais

A partir da Teoria do Investimento Parental prevê-se diminuição no investimento com a diminuição da relação benefício/custos. Investigou-se a variação no investimento materno em função de variáveis socioambientais que podem apresentar impacto na relação benefício/custo do investimento materno. Os fatores investigados apresentaram, de forma geral, efeito sobre o investimento materno no sentido esperado de acordo com a teoria: quanto maiores os custos representados pela ausência de coabitação com pai, pouca disponibilidade de renda e início precoce da vida reprodutiva, menor o investimento materno. Conclui-se que os fatores socioambientais podem promover ou inibir o investimento materno indicando a importância de políticas públicas no sentido da promoção da estabilidade destes fatores.

Maternal trade-off in treating high-risk children

Low birthweight and the infant's health status are expected to strongly influence the child's reproductive value and, thus, the maternal decisions on the amount and timing of investment. A total of 590 Hungarian primiparous mothers giving birth in the late 1980s were recruited for the longitudinal study. Mothers of high-risk infants shortened the duration of breast-feeding and interbirth intervals, compared to those with an infant of higher survival prospects. The most powerful predictor of the length of the lactation period was the infant's weight at birth, whereas birth spacing was significantly influenced by the health status of the older child. Socioeconomic status had a positive effect on maternal care as well, but it did not change the basic pattern of diminishing maternal care as a function of the infants' low reproductive value. The combination of the above factors resulted in a cumulative effect on maternal investment of mothers with handicapped children of various degrees of risk. An attempt has been made to exclude alternative explanations and to discuss the proximate mechanisms of discriminative parental solicitude.