Early exploration of one's own body, exploration of objects, and motor, language, and cognitive development relate dynamically across the first two years of life

Evaluation of the Movement and Play Opportunities and Constraints Associated With Containers for Infants

PURPOSE

Containers (eg, strollers, bouncers) are an important part of infants' environment but may negatively impact infant development and health. This study evaluated movement and play opportunities, constraints, and manufacturers' developmental claims for infant containers.

METHODS

Containers were identified through Amazon.com. A content analysis of identified products was conducted to identify movement and visual-manual play opportunities, constraints, and developmental claims.

RESULTS

Content was analyzed for 460 containers. Containers varied in their movement and play opportunities; however, most did not incorporate toys and restricted trunk movement, self-directed locomotion, and independent head and trunk control. Containers, especially those with built-in toys, often had claims related to gross motor, sensory, and fine motor development.

CONCLUSION

These findings demonstrate the variability of movement and play opportunities observed across and within categories of infant containers. General recommendations about container use may be less effective than more specific education to parents about selecting and implementing containers.

Object exploration is facilitated by the physical and social environment in center-based child care

Object exploration is considered a driver of motor, cognitive, and social development. However, little is known about how early childhood education and care settings facilitate object exploration. This study examined if children's exploration of objects during free play was facilitated by the use of particular spatial components (floor, tables, and activity centers) and types of play (solitary, social, and parallel). Participants were 61 children (aged 11 to 48 months and 50.8% boys, socioeconomic levels representative of the Dutch population). Intraindividual variability in children's object exploration was predicted by the use of particular spatial components and the social setting, with small-to-medium effect sizes. Solitary and parallel play were positively associated with complex object exploration, especially when sitting or standing at child-height tables. During social play, object exploration was mostly absent.

HEP® (Homeostasis-Enrichment-Plasticity) Approach Changes Sensory-Motor Development Trajectory and Improves Parental Goals: A Single Subject Study of an Infant with Hemiparetic Cerebral Palsy and Twin Anemia Polycythemia Sequence (TAPS)

BACKGROUND

Early intervention (EI) for infants identified as being at high risk for cerebral palsy (CP), or who have been diagnosed with it, is critical for promotion of postnatal brain organization. The aim of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the Homeostasis-Enrichment-Plasticity (HEP) Approach, which is a contemporary EI model that applies the key principles of enriched environment paradigms and neuronal plasticity from experimental animal studies to ecological theories of human development on the motor development, sensory functions, and parental goals of an infant with twin anemia polycythemia sequence (TAPS) and CP.

METHODS

An AB phase with follow-up single case study design which consisted of multiple baseline assessments with the Peabody Developmental Motor Scales-2 (PDMS-2) and the Test of Sensory Functions in Infants (TSFI) was used. Non-overlapping confidence intervals analysis was used for pre-post PDMS-2 scores. The measurement of progress toward goals and objectives was conducted using the Goal Attainment Scale (GAS). The HEP Approach intervention consisted of 12 one-hour sessions implemented over a period of 3 months, where a physical therapist provided weekly clinic-based parental coaching.

RESULTS

Results found a stable baseline during Phase A and improvement in response to the HEP Approach intervention during Phase B in both the PDMS-2 and TSFI according to 2SD Band analysis. The confidence intervals for the PDMS-2 scores also indicated a significant improvement after HEP intervention. The scores for both the PDMS-2 and the TSFI were consistent or showed improvement throughout the Follow-Up phase. A GAS t-score of 77.14 indicated that the infant exceeded intervention goal expectations.

CONCLUSIONS

Although our findings suggest that the HEP Approach intervention has promise in enhancing sensory functions, motor skill outcomes, and parental goals in an infant with TAPS and CP, further research is required to validate and apply these results more broadly.

Depth and Quality of Recommendations in Popular Sources About How to Play with Infants: Content Analysis

AIM

Systematically evaluate the depth and quality of play recommendations provided in popular sources for parents of infants in the first year of life.

METHODS

This represents the second stage of a larger analysis of educational content available to parents. Two coders (>90% agreement) extracted and coded play activities from popular websites, applications, and books screened from a systematic online search. Depth of instruction variables were extracted. Activity quality was rated based on opportunities for child-initiated movement, problem-solving with objects, and responsive communication.

RESULTS

4370 play activities from 214 sources were analyzed. Activities were likely to suggest specific ages for infants and that a caregiver be present. Less than half of the activities incorporated toys or provided guidance about how to position or physically support infants. Activity quality was low; most activities did not explicitly encourage parents to provide opportunities for child-initiated movement, problem-solving with objects, or quality communication.

CONCLUSIONS

Parents may encounter a large number of play activities in popular sources, but the depth of instruction and quality of those activities could be improved. Provision of higher-quality education to parents may enhance parent-child play interactions to positively impact parent and child outcomes, especially for children at risk for delays.

An update of the development of motor behavior

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.

Variations in infants' physical and social environments shape spontaneous locomotion

Independent locomotion is associated with a range of positive developmental outcomes, but unlike cognitive, linguistic, and social skills, acquiring motor skills requires infants to generate their own input for learning. We tested factors that shape infants' spontaneous locomotion by observing forty 12- to 22-month-olds (19 girls, 21 boys) during free play. Infants were recruited from the New York City area, and caregivers reported that 25 infants were White, six were Asian, four were Black, and five had multiple races; four were Hispanic or Latino. All infants played in four conditions: two environmental conditions (gross-motor toys, fine-motor toys) crossed with two social conditions (alone, together with a caregiver). Infants moved more in the gross-motor toy conditions than in the fine-motor toy conditions. However, the effect of playing with a caregiver differed by toy condition. In the gross-motor toy conditions, playing with a caregiver did not affect how much infants moved, but in the fine-motor toy conditions, playing with a caregiver further depressed infant locomotion. Infants with more walking experience moved more with gross-motor toys but not with fine-motor toys. Differences in the amount of locomotion between conditions were related to how infants used toys and the interactions between infants and caregivers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Early object skill supports growth in role-differentiated bimanual manipulation in infants

The ability to coordinate the hands together to act on objects where each hand does something different is known as role-differentiated bimanual manipulation (RDBM). This study investigated two motor skills that may support the development of RDBM: infants' early object skill and their early sitting skill. To evaluate these potential predictors of RDBM growth, 90 infants were examined in a lab-based longitudinal design over a 9-month period. Latent growth modeling was used to estimate RDBM growth trajectories over 9 to 14 months from infants' object and sitting skills at 6 months, controlling for infant's sex, mother's education, and family income. Higher object skill, controlling for sitting skill, was related to a higher increase in RDBM over time. Sitting did not predict infants' change in RDBM over time, controlling for object skill. The ability to manage multiple objects may support collaborative hand use by providing infants with opportunities to practice actions that will be needed later for RDBM. By comparison, sitting may free the hands in an unspecified manner for manipulation.

Visual abilities and exploration behaviors as predictors of intelligence in autistic children from preschool to school age

LAY ABSTRACT

At the time of diagnosis, parents of autistic children frequently wonder what the future holds for their children in terms of intellectual development. It remains however difficult to answer this question at such a young age. Indeed, while early precursors of intelligence are well known for children following a typical development, these precursors remain to be identified for autistic children. Some theoretical models of intelligence suggest that perceptual abilities or behaviors, as seen early in autistic cognitive development, could be early indicators of intelligence. However, research examining the relation between early perceptual predictors and autistic intelligence over time is needed. This article is the first to consider a variety of early perceptual abilities and behaviors as precursors/predictors of intelligence at school age in autistic children. We showed that better performance in perceptual tasks at preschool age predicted better intellectual abilities measured later in autistic children. Importantly, our sample of autistic children represented the whole spectrum, including children with few to no spoken words, who are an important proportion of autistic preschoolers. While early perceptual abilities and behaviors may not substitute for a formal intellectual assessment, our results support that these indices may help estimate later intellectual level in autistic children. Perceptual abilities have the advantage to be easy to observe at preschool age and seem to fit the cognitive style of autistic children. Assessment methods could probably gain from including and focusing more on the perceptual strengths of autistic children.

Biological and environmental factors may affect children's executive function through motor and sensorimotor development: Preterm birth and cerebral palsy

Disruptive biological and environmental factors may undermine the development of children's motor and sensorimotor skills. Since the development of cognitive skills, including executive function, is grounded in early motor and sensorimotor experiences, early delays or impairments in motor and sensorimotor processing often trigger dynamic developmental cascades that lead to suboptimal executive function outcomes. The purpose of this perspective paper is to link early differences in motor/sensorimotor processing to the development of executive function in children born preterm or with cerebral palsy. Uncovering such links in clinical populations would improve our understanding of developmental pathways and key motor and sensorimotor skills that are antecedent and foundational for the development of executive function. This knowledge will allow the refinement of early interventions targeting motor and sensorimotor skills with the goal of proactively improving executive function outcomes in at-risk populations.

How babies use their hands to learn about objects: Exploration, reach-to-grasp, manipulation, and tool use

Object play is essential for infant learning, and infants spend most of their day with objects. Young infants learn about objects and their properties through multimodal exploration facilitated by caregivers. They figure out how to transport their hands to where objects are, and how to grasp objects in increasingly complex ways. Building on earlier experiences, they learn how to use their hands collaboratively to act on objects, and how to use objects to act on other objects in instrumental ways. These changes in how infants use their hands occur during the most rapid period of motor development and may have important downstream implications for other domains. Recent research findings have established the importance of effective fine motor skills for later academic skills, yet our understanding of the factors that influence the early development of hand skills is sparse at best. Latest research on reaching, grasping, object manipulation, hands collaboration, and tool use is reviewed and connections among these developments are explained from the perspective of developmental cascades. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Motor Skill and Performance Psychology > Development and Aging.

The more they hear the more they learn? Using data from bilinguals to test models of early lexical development

Children have an early ability to learn and comprehend words, a skill that develops as they age. A critical question remains regarding what drives this development. Maturation-based theories emphasise cognitive maturity as a driver of comprehension, while accumulator theories emphasise children's accumulation of language experience over time. In this study we used archival looking-while-listening data from 155 children aged 14-48 months with a range of exposure to the target languages (from 10% to 100%) to evaluate the relative contributions of maturation and experience. We compared four statistical models of noun learning: maturation-only, experience-only, additive (maturation plus experience), and accumulator (maturation times experience). The best-fitting model was the additive model in which both maturation (age) and experience were independent contributors to noun comprehension: older children as well as children who had more experience with the target language were more accurate and looked faster to the target in the looking-while-listening task. A 25% change in relative language exposure was equivalent to a 4 month change in age, and age effects were stronger at younger than at older ages. Whereas accumulator models predict that the lexical development of children with less exposure to a language (as is typical in bilinguals) should fall further and further behind children with more exposure to a language (such as monolinguals), our results indicate that bilinguals are buffered against effects of reduced exposure in each language. This study shows that continuous-level measures from individual children's looking-while-listening data, gathered from children with a range of language experience, provide a powerful window into lexical development.

The Home Environments of Infants of Mothers with Early, Remitted Clinical Depression and No Depression during the First Two Years Postpartum

The current study examines stability, continuity, and group and gender differences in the home environments of infants of mothers with early, remitted clinical depression and no postpartum depression, overcoming methodological variations in the extant literature. Fifty-five mothers diagnosed with clinical depression (major or minor depression, dysthymia, or depressive disorder not otherwise specified) at 5 months and fully remitted by 15 and 24 months, and 132 mothers with no postpartum depression (Mage = 32.47; 69.7% European American) completed the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Inventory Infant/Toddler version when their infants were 15 and 24 months old. No differences in stability estimates of the HOME scales were found between the groups. In terms of continuity, controlling for maternal education and infant birth order, HOME responsivity, involvement, and total score decreased, while HOME acceptance increased between 15 and 24 months in the full sample. There were no effects of group or gender. Results may point to the home environment as a key protective factor for infants of mothers with early, remitted clinical depression, or findings may suggest improved maternal parenting cognitions and practices following remission.

Towards imaging the infant brain at play

Infants' first-person experiences are crucial to early cognitive and neural development. To a vast extent, these early experiences involve play, which in infancy takes the form of object exploration. While at the behavioral level infant play has been studied both using specific tasks and in naturalistic scenarios, the neural correlates of object exploration have largely been studied in highly controlled task settings. These neuroimaging studies did not tap into the complexities of everyday play and what makes object exploration so important for development. Here, we review selected infant neuroimaging studies, spanning from typical, highly controlled screen-based studies on object perception to more naturalistic designs and argue for the importance of studying the neural correlates of key behaviors such as object exploration and language comprehension in naturalistic settings. We suggest that the advances in technology and analytic approaches allow measuring the infant brain at play with the use of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Naturalistic fNIRS studies offer a new and exciting avenue to studying infant neurocognitive development in a way that will draw us away from our laboratory constructs and into an infant's everyday experiences that support their development.

Key role of Rho GTPases in motor disorders associated with neurodevelopmental pathologies

Growing evidence suggests that Rho GTPases and molecules involved in their signaling pathways play a major role in the development of the central nervous system (CNS). Whole exome sequencing (WES) and de novo examination of mutations, including SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) in genes coding for the molecules of their signaling cascade, has allowed the recent discovery of dominant autosomic mutations and duplication or deletion of candidates in the field of neurodevelopmental diseases (NDD). Epidemiological studies show that the co-occurrence of several of these neurological pathologies may indeed be the rule. The regulators of Rho GTPases have often been considered for cognitive diseases such as intellectual disability (ID) and autism. But, in a remarkable way, mild to severe motor symptoms are now reported in autism and other cognitive NDD. Although a more abundant litterature reports the involvement of Rho GTPases and signaling partners in cognitive development, molecular investigations on their roles in central nervous system (CNS) development or degenerative CNS pathologies also reveal their role in embryonic and perinatal motor wiring through axon guidance and later in synaptic plasticity. Thus, Rho family small GTPases have been revealed to play a key role in brain functions including learning and memory but their precise role in motor development and associated symptoms in NDD has been poorly scoped so far, despite increasing clinical data highlighting the links between cognition and motor development. Indeed, early impairements in fine or gross motor performance is often an associated feature of NDDs, which then impact social communication, cognition, emotion, and behavior. We review here recent insights derived from clinical developmental neurobiology in the field of Rho GTPases and NDD (autism spectrum related disorder (ASD), ID, schizophrenia, hypotonia, spastic paraplegia, bipolar disorder and dyslexia), with a specific focus on genetic alterations affecting Rho GTPases that are involved in motor circuit development.

Developing language in a developing body, revisited: The cascading effects of motor development on the acquisition of language

In the first years of life, infants rapidly acquire a series of new motor skills. They learn to sit independently, to walk with skill, and to engage in a wide variety of interactions with objects. Over these same years, infants also begin to develop language. These are not isolated events. In a complex developing system, even small changes in one domain can have far-reaching effects on development in other domains. This is the fundamental idea behind the rich framework known as the developmental cascades perspective. Here we employ this framework to show how early motor advances can exert downstream effects on the development of language. Focusing first on the emergence of independent sitting, then on the development of walking, and finally on changes in the ways in which infants act on and combine actions on objects, we describe how the nature and quality of infant actions change dramatically over the first few years and how this brings with it new possibilities for engaging the environment, more sophisticated ways of interacting with people, and significant alterations in communications directed by caregivers to the infant and coordinated with infant action in time and in meaning. The developmental cascades framework provides an approach for understanding how advances in motor skills influence communicative and language development, and more generally, for conceptualizing the constant, dynamic, and complex interplay between developing infants and their environments as it unfolds over time. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language Acquisition Psychology > Motor Skill and Performance Psychology > Development and Aging.

The Effect of START-Play Intervention on Reaching-Related Exploratory Behaviors in Children with Neuromotor Delays: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Controlled Trial

AIMS

Children with neuromotor delays are at risk for reaching and object exploration impairments, which may negatively affect their cognitive development and daily activity performance. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the Sitting Together And Reaching To Play (START-Play) intervention on reaching-related exploratory behaviors in children with neuromotor delays.

METHODS

In this randomized controlled clinical trial, 112 children (Mean = 10.80, SD = 2.59 months old at baseline) with motor delays were randomly assigned to receive START-Play intervention or usual care-early intervention. Performance for ten reaching-related exploratory behaviors was assessed at baseline and 1.5, 3, 6, 12 months post-baseline. Piecewise linear mixed-effects modeling was used to evaluate short- and long-term effects of the intervention.

RESULTS

Benefits of START-Play were observed for children with significant motor delays, but not for those with mild delays. START-Play was especially beneficial for children with significant motor delays who demonstrated early mastery in the reaching assessment (i.e., object contact ≥65% of the time within 3 months after baseline); these children showed greater improvements in manual, visual, and multimodal exploration, as well as intensity of exploration across time.

CONCLUSIONS

START-Play advanced the performance of reaching-related exploratory behaviors in children with significant motor delays.

A model for using developmental science to create effective early intervention programs and technologies to improve children's developmental outcomes

Children born with a variety of environmental or medical risk factors may exhibit delays in global development. Very often, such delays are identified at preschool or school age, when children are severely overdue for effective early interventions that can alleviate the delays. This chapter proposes a conceptual model of child development to inform the creation of interventions and rehabilitative technologies that can be provided very early in development, throughout the first year of life, to optimize children's future developmental outcomes. The model suggests that early sensorimotor skills are antecedent and foundational for future motor, cognitive, language, and social development. As an example, this chapter describes how children's early postural control and exploratory movements facilitate the development of future object exploration behaviors that provide enhanced opportunities for learning and advance children's motor, cognitive, language, and social development. An understanding of the developmental pathways in the model can enable the design of effective intervention programs and rehabilitative technologies that target sensorimotor skills in the first year of life with the goal of minimizing or ameliorating the delays that are typically identified at preschool or school age. Specific examples of early interventions and rehabilitative technologies that have effectively advanced children's motor and cognitive development by targeting early sensorimotor skills and behaviors are provided.

Effects of thalamic and basal ganglia deep brain stimulation on language-related functions - Conceptual and clinical considerations

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a therapy for various neurological movement disorders. It acts predominantly on motor symptoms, but may unfold a number of mostly subtle cognitive effects. In this regard, reports on particular language-related DBS sequels are comparably frequent, but difficult to overlook, given the heterogeneity of targeted structures in the brain, treated diseases, assessment methods and results reported. Accordingly, available knowledge was organized with respect to important aspects, such as the main DBS loci and surgical versus neuromodulatory therapy actions. Current views of biolinguistic underpinnings of the reviewed data, their clinical relevance and potential implications are discussed.

From Hemispheric Asymmetry through Sensorimotor Experiences to Cognitive Outcomes in Children with Cerebral Palsy

Recent neuroimaging studies allowed us to explore abnormal brain structures and interhemispheric connectivity in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Behavioral researchers have long reported that children with CP exhibit suboptimal performance in different cognitive domains (e.g., receptive and expressive language skills, reading, mental imagery, spatial processing, subitizing, math, and executive functions). However, there has been very limited cross-domain research involving these two areas of scientific inquiry. To stimulate such research, this perspective paper proposes some possible neurological mechanisms involved in the cognitive delays and impairments in children with CP. Additionally, the paper examines the ways motor and sensorimotor experience during the development of these neural substrates could enable more optimal development for children with CP. Understanding these developmental mechanisms could guide more effective interventions to promote the development of both sensorimotor and cognitive skills in children with CP.

Early development in autism: How developmental cascades help us understand the emergence of developmental differences

Many theories of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) focus on a single system or factor as an explanatory mechanism for autism symptoms and behavior. However, there is growing recognition that ASD is a complex, multisystem neurodevelopmental condition with origins in prenatal life. Researchers therefore need a conceptual framework that allows examination of the interplay between multiple interacting domains and systems and the ways in which they extend their influence beyond the individual into the surrounding environment. The developmental cascades perspective suggests that even relatively small perturbations in early emerging behaviors in domains that are not traditionally linked may influence subsequent achievements across these areas. In this chapter, we illustrate how a developmental cascades framework can be used to inform the study of developmental differences. The developmental cascades perspective provides us with conceptual and methodological tools for considering how variation in children's real time behavior can provide new insights into sources of variation in their developmental trajectories and outcomes. It also suggests approaches for intervention that leverage targeted skills in novel ways, creating opportunities to support development in other domains and fine-tune caregiver behavior to create powerful moments for infant learning.

Infants exploring objects: A cascades perspective

Infants spend much of their time exploring objects (Herzberg et al., 2021), and object exploration is linked to learning and development in various domains (e.g., social, cognitive, motor). But how does exploration develop in the first place, and how, exactly, does exploration promote learning? One way to approach these process-oriented questions is with a developmental cascades perspective, which holds that new skills emerge from earlier-developing ones and that various interactions with people and objects accumulate over time to influence multiple domains of development (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010). In this chapter, we describe object exploration from a developmental cascades perspective. In Section 2, we describe typical and atypical trajectories of exploration behaviors, noting how these behaviors emerge from earlier-developing cognitive and motor skills. In Section 3, we discuss how object exploration opens the door for new types of learning opportunities. In Section 4, we discuss early experiences that may shape the development of object exploration. Altogether, we aim to convey that new developments in exploration skills are extensions of earlier-developing skills, and that seemingly insignificant exploratory behaviors (e.g., shaking a rattle) may result in numerous and varied consequences for the developing infant.