presents examples of recently published reports from both areas of the laboratorys work. Program I: The Child, the Parent, and the Family Across the First 2+ Decades The brain electrical responses of 3-month-old infants were compared between images of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Infants were shown images of their mothers and of appearance-matched female strangers for 500 ms per trial while their EEG was recorded. EEG signals were segmented from stimulus onset through 1200 ms, and segments were analyzed in the time-frequency domain with a continuous wavelet transform. Differentiated responses were apparent in three time windows: 370-480 ms, 610-690 ms, and 830-960 ms. Across response windows, event related synchronization (ERS) or desynchronization (ERD) was observed in beta or gamma frequency bands at left frontal, midline central, bilateral temporal, and right parietal sites. These findings provide the first evidence of organized brain activity underlying face recognition in very young infants and are discussed in relation to the comparable patterns that have been observed in adults. To explore the effects of motherhood on brain activity patterns, EEG was recorded while primipara mothers of 3- and 6-month-olds viewed images of faces of their own child and an unfamiliar but appearance-matched child. Mothers of 3- and 6-month-olds showed equivalent early-wave (N/P1 visual and N170 face-sensitive) responses to own and unfamiliar baby faces but differentiating late-wave (N/P600 familiar/ novel) activity to own versus unfamiliar infant faces. Based on 3 months experience with their own infants face, mothers brain patterns give evidence of distinctive late-wave (recognition) sensitivity. We conducted a large-scale (N = 374), normative, prospective, 14-year longitudinal, multivariate, multisource, controlled study of a developmental cascade from infant motor-exploratory competence at 5 months to adolescent academic achievement at 14 years. This developmental cascade applied equally to girls and boys and was independent of childrens behavioral adjustment and social competence;mothers supportive caregiving, verbal intelligence, education, and parenting knowledge;and the material home environment. Infants who were more motorically mature and who explored more actively at 5 months of age achieved higher academic levels as 14-year-olds. In a study of maternal depression, we examined the factorial dimensions underlying Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) in a large ethnically and economically diverse sample of postpartum women and to assess their relative contribution in differentiating clinical diagnoses in a subsample of depressed women. We administered the BDI-II to 953 women between 4 and 20 weeks postpartum. Women who had low (1-7) and high (>12) BDI-II total scores were administered the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I). Exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed three factors, Cognitive, Somatic, and Affective, that accounted for 49.09% of the overall variance of items. Logistic regression analyses showed that somatic and affective factors contributed to diagnosis of major depression, while the somatic factor alone contributed to the diagnosis of depression with comorbid anxiety. The cognitive factor differentiated women with major depression from women who were never depressed. Conceptualizing the structure of the BDI-II using these three factors could contribute to refining the measurement and scoring of depressive symptomatology and severity in postpartum women. Although somatic symptoms of depression may be difficult to differentiate from the physiological changes of normative postpartum adjustment, our results support the inclusion of somatic symptoms of depression in the calculation of a BDI-II total score. We studied mothers microcoded contingent responsiveness to their infants (M = 5.4 months, SD = 0.2) in relation to independent global judgments of the same mothers parenting sensitivity. In a community sample of 335 European American dyads, videorecorded infant and maternal behaviors were timed microanalytically throughout an extended home observation;separately and independently, global maternal sensitivity was rated macroanalytically. Sequential analysis and spline regression showed that, as maternal contingent responsiveness increased, judged maternal sensitivity increased to significance on the contingency continuum, after which mothers who were even more contingent were judged less sensitive. Just significant levels of maternal responsiveness are deemed optimally sensitive. Implications of these findings for typical and atypical parenting, child development, and intervention science are discussed. Program II: Child Development and Parenting in Multicultural Perspective Using nationally representative samples of 45,964 2- to 9-year-old children and their primary caregivers in 17 developing countries, we sought to understand relations between childrens cognitive, language, sensory, and motor disabilities and caregivers use of discipline and violence. Primary caregivers reported on their childs disabilities and whether they or anyone in their household had used nonviolent discipline, psychological aggression, and physical violence toward the target child and whether they believed that using corporal punishment is necessary. Logistic regression analyses supported the hypothesis that children with disabilities are treated more harshly than children without disabilities. The findings suggest that policies and interventions are needed to work toward the United Nations goals of ensuring that children with disabilities are protected from abuse and violence. Another study investigated how adults in two contrasting cultures (Italian and Japanese) perceive episodes of crying of typically developing (TD) children and children with Autism Disorder (AD). Although cries of children with AD have been reported to elicit more distress in Western cultures, it is not known whether similar findings hold in Eastern cultures. In Experiment 1, we artificially modified structural parameters (fundamental frequency, duration of pauses, waveform modulation) of cries and asked Italian and Japanese adults to judge levels of expressed and felt distress in the cries. In Experiment 2, we asked Italian and Japanese adults to report these levels of distress on hearing cries of AD and TD children. In both cultures, cries with higher fundamental frequency and shorter pause durations were judged more distressing and distressed and observers perceived cries of children with AD as more distressing and distressed than cries of TD children. The similar responses in adults from two contrasting societies constitute evidence that reactions to cries of children with AD might be universal. A tridimensional model is proposed and tested among Jamaican adolescent-mother dyads in the United States compared with Jamaican Islander, European American, African American, and other Black and non-Black U.S. immigrant dyads (473 dyads, M adolescent age = 14 years). Jamaican immigrants evidence tridimensional acculturation, orienting toward Jamaican, African American, and European American cultures. Integration is favored (70%), particularly tricultural integration;moreover, Jamaican and other Black U.S. immigrants are more oriented toward African American than European American culture. Jamaican immigrant youth adapt at least as well as non-immigrant Jamaican and U.S. peers, although assimilated adolescents, particularly first generation, have worse sociocultural adaptation than integrated and separated adolescents.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 154 publications
