The following presents examples of recently published reports from both areas of the lab's work. Program I: The Child, the Parent, and the Family Across the First 2+ Decades One study examined the development of adaptive generalization in infants object-directed actions. Infants from 9 to 12 months of age participated in an object manipulation task with stimulus objects from 2 categories that differed in shape and weight and that bore a consistent shape or weight correspondence. Weight differences between categories affected the actions required to handle the objects effectively. Infants manually explored objects from both categories and were tested for their use of different actions between categories and their generalization to novel exemplars within categories. Nine-month-olds provided no evidence of category differentiation and generalization; however, 12-month-olds adapted their actions selectively for objects in each category and generalized those actions to novel objects within categories. A second sample of 9-month-olds who were examined in a simplified task with just one object per weight level successfully adapted their actions by weight. The findings provide evidence for the development of selection and generalization in manipulative action across first year of life. We examined infant-mother and infant-caregiver emotional relationships, comparing three childcare arrangements: (1) mothers who provided full-time childcare at home; (2) mothers with in-home childcare; and (3) mothers with childcare provided in a non-familial caregivers home. Emotional relationships in infantmother dyads in the three groups were compared as were infant relationships with childcare providers. With respect to the quality of the infant-mother emotional relationship, dyads in all 3 groups scored within the adaptive range. However, dyads using in-home childcare arrangements displayed healthier emotional relationships than dyads experiencing fulltime maternal care. With respect to the quality of the infant-caregiver emotional relationship, no difference was found for the three types of childcare providers. Comparing the relationships of the same infant to mother and to caregiver, differences were found for in-home care but not for family childcare. Infants experiencing in-home childcare displayed healthier emotional relationships with their mothers than with their caregivers, but infantmother and infantcaregiver quality were comparable in family childcare families. Emotional relationships in infantmother and infantcaregiver dyads were not correlated, for all groups. Our data demonstrate that the emotional relationship a mother has with her infant is not adversely affected if she works outside the home and uses home-based childcare. The results underscore the need to differentiate among various kinds of nonfamilial childcare arrangements. A literature has developed indicating that adoption is a beneficial alternative for children who cannot be reared by their biological parents. Yet, adoption is associated with behavioral and learning difficulties for some children. Our goal was to assess whether mothers and children had developed a well-functioning relationship by preschool age. We examined the quality of interactions between mothers and their 4-year-old children in community samples of low-risk adoptive and birth families. Maternal sensitivity and support and child responsiveness and exploration were assessed during joint tasks. We also considered child gender, behavioral adjustment, self-concept, intelligence, and adaptive behavior and maternal parenting satisfaction and support. At age 4, although both groups of dyads scored in the adaptive range, adoptive mothers were less sensitive, more intrusive, and exhibited lower quality instruction; adopted children were more negative and less compliant; as a result, the quality of dyadic interaction in adoptive dyads was lower compared to nonadoptive dyads. Adoptive dyads with boys accounted for group differences. Further studies of children adopted under optimal circumstances should examine differences in parent-child relationships within the family to inform our understanding of longer-term outcomes in adopted children. Program II: Child Development and Parenting in Multicultural Perspective Caregiver education is known to relate to the physical growth of children, but possible mechanisms of this association are poorly characterized and lack empirical support. We tested whether instructional capital (caregiver education) leads to improved infant growth through availability of physical capital (household resources) across a number of low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). Using the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, we explored relations among caregiver education, household resources, and infant growth in 117,881 families in 39 LMIC. Overall, household resources mediated 76% of the association between caregiver education and infant growth. When disaggregated by countries characterized by low, medium, and high levels of human development (indexed by average life expectancy, education and gross domestic product), household resources mediated 48% to 78% of the association between caregiver education and infant growth. Caregiver education had effects on infant growth through household resources in countries characterized by levels of human development; for both girls and boys; and controlling infant feeding and health. Mother-infant vocal interactions serve multiple functions in child development, but it remains unclear whether key features of these interactions are community-common or community-specific. We examined rates, interrelations, and contingencies of vocal interactions between 684 mothers and their 5-month-old infants in diverse communities in 11 countries Rates of mothers' and infants' vocalizations varied widely across communities and were uncorrelated. Collapsing the data across communities, we found that mothers' vocalizations to infants were contingent on the offset of the infants' nondistress vocalizing, that infants' vocalizations were contingent on the offset of their mothers' vocalizing, and that maternal and infant contingencies were significantly correlated. These findings point to the beginnings of dyadic conversational turn taking. Despite broad differences in the overall talkativeness of mothers and infants, maternal and infant contingent vocal responsiveness is found across communities, supporting the universality of essential functions of turn taking in early-childhood socialization. It is generally believed that parental rejection of children leads to child maladaptation. Yet, the specific effects of perceived parental acceptance-rejection on diverse domains of child adjustment and development have been incompletely documented, and whether these effects hold across diverse populations and for mothers and fathers are still open questions. This study assessed children's perceptions of mother and father acceptance-rejection in 1,247 families from China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand and the US as predictors of later internalizing and externalizing problems, school performance, prosocial behavior and social competence. Higher perceived parental rejection predicted increases in internalizing and externalizing problems and decreases in school performance and prosocial behavior across 3 years controlling for within-wave relations, stability across waves, and parental age, education, and social desirability bias. Patterns of relations were similar across mothers and fathers and, with a few exceptions, all nine countries. Children's perceptions of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection have nearly universal effects on multiple aspects of child adjustment and development regardless of the family's country of origin
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