Social Understanding in Israeli-Jewish, Israeli-Palestinian, Palestinian, and Jordanian 5-year-old Children: Moral Judgments and Stereotypes.

An empirical investigation was conducted of young Palestinian, Jordanian, Israeli-Palestinian, and Israeli-Jewish children's (N = 433; M = 5.7 years of age) cultural stereotypes and their evaluations of peer intergroup exclusion based upon a number of different factors, including being from a different country and speaking a different language. Children in this study live in a geographical region that has a history of cultural and religious tension, violence, and extreme intergroup conflict. Our findings revealed that the negative consequences of living with intergroup tension are related to the use of stereotypes. At the same time, the results for moral judgments and evaluations about excluding peers provided positive results about the young children's inclusive views regarding peer interactions.

Advanced parental age and the risk of autism spectrum disorder.

This study evaluated independent effects of maternal and paternal age on risk of autism spectrum disorder. A case-cohort design was implemented using data from 10 US study sites participating in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network. The 1994 birth cohort included 253,347 study-site births with complete parental age information. Cases included 1,251 children aged 8 years with complete parental age information from the same birth cohort and identified as having an autism spectrum disorder based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision criteria. After adjustment for the other parent's age, birth order, maternal education, and other covariates, both maternal and paternal age were independently associated with autism (adjusted odds ratio for maternal age > or =35 vs. 25-29 years = 1.3, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 1.6; adjusted odds ratio for paternal age > or =40 years vs. 25-29 years = 1.4, 95% confidence interval: 1.1, 1.8). Firstborn offspring of 2 older parents were 3 times more likely to develop autism than were third- or later-born offspring of mothers aged 20-34 years and fathers aged <40 years (odds ratio = 3.1, 95% confidence interval: 2.0, 4.7). The increase in autism risk with both maternal and paternal age has potential implications for public health planning and investigations of autism etiology.

Consistency in infant sleeping arrangements and mother-infant interaction.

This study examined the association between infant sleeping arrangements (i.e., habitual co-sleeping, inconsistent co-sleeping, and non-co-sleeping) and quality of mother-infant interaction during play in a sample of mothers, each with a typically developing infant (N=70). Mother-infant dyads who experienced consistency in infant sleeping arrangements in a typical week at 6 months (i.e., habitual co-sleeping or non-co-sleeping) were characterized by more positive maternal and infant behavior and dyadic quality of interaction at 9 months compared with dyads who experienced inconsistency in sleeping arrangements. Additionally, a greater amount of co-sleeping per week was associated with an increased duration of breastfeeding, mothers working fewer hours, less infant temperamental intensity, and less maternal depression. This study underscores the advantages of empirically based studies that consider consistency in infant sleep experience as a factor that is associated with more positive mother-child interaction.

Maternal self-efficacy, knowledge of infant development, sensory sensitivity, and maternal response during interaction.

When their infants were 6 months of age, mothers were assessed for self-efficacy (low, moderate, and high illusory control) and knowledge of infant development to determine their impact on mothers' behavioral sensitivity and affect during a feeding task at 9 months (N=70). Mothers' sensory sensitivity to digital images of infants' negative and positive expressions assessed in a signal detection task at 6 months was hypothesized to mediate this relation. Mothers with moderate illusory control exhibited greatest behavioral sensitivity and positive affect. Low knowledge was associated with reduced sensitivity for mothers with low illusory control only. When viewing the negative expression, mothers with moderate illusory control and high knowledge exhibited greatest sensory sensitivity, and mothers with high illusory control and moderate/high knowledge were least sensitive. Although sensory sensitivity was not a mediating variable, its relation to both illusory control and subsequent maternal measures during feeding was informative. Although greater sensory sensitivity predicted more sensitive behavior and more positive affect, only for maternal affect was the relation independent of illusion of control effects.

Maternal self-efficacy and experimentally manipulated infant difficulty effects on maternal sensory sensitivity: a signal detection analysis.

The impact of differences in maternal self-efficacy and infant difficulty on mothers' sensitivity to small changes in the fundamental frequency of an audiotaped infant's cry was explored in 2 experiments. The experiments share in common experimental manipulations of infant difficulty, a laboratory derived measure of maternal efficacy (low, moderate, and high illusory control), and the use of signal detection methodology to measure maternal sensory sensitivity. In Experiment 1 (N = 72), easy and difficult infant temperament was manipulated by varying the amount of crying (i.e., frequency of cry termination) in a simulated child-care task. In Experiment 2 (N = 51), easy and difficult infant temperament was manipulated via exposure to the solvable or unsolvable pretreatment of a learned helplessness task to mirror mothers' ability to soothe a crying infant. In both experiments, only mothers with high illusory control showed reduced sensory sensitivity under the difficult infant condition compared with the easy infant condition.

Cognitive Set and Coping Strategy Affect Mothers' Sensitivity to Infant Cries: A Signal Detection Approach.

We used Signal Detection methodology to examine how cognitiveset affects mothers' response to an infant cry. We asked whether a cry from a "difficult" versus an "easy" infant would elicit a change in sensitivity or response bias in mother processing of these cries. Thirty-eight mothers of 4- to 6-month-old infants participated in a Signal Detection task in which they were asked whether they could detect differences between a standard cry and 1 to 4 cry variants. Cry variants differed from the standard cry in small, systematic changes in fundamental frequency. The task was conducted in 2 parts; each part constituted a condition wherein mother received a cognitive set manipulation that labeled the identical cry as coming from either a''difficult''or an "easy" infant. An increase in mothers' sensitivity was associated with the "difficult" infant cognitive set. We examined as well how a coping strategy(illusion of control) affected cry signal processing. Mothers who Exhibited high illusory control were least -sensitive in detecting differences between cries. Two information-prcessing, measures response time and heart rate, were also collected and showed that greater sensitivity was associated with more efficient processing of the cry signal.

Maternal control strategies, maternal language usage and children's language usage at two years.

The present study determined whether parenting style, defined by control strategies varying in power-assertion mediated the established relation between maternal language usage (grammar and semantics) and child language (grammar, semantics and pragmatics) during toddlerhood (n=60). Based upon their use of control strategies mothers were categorized into continuum-of-control groups (i.e., high guidance (HG), high control (HC) or high negative control (HNC)). Mothers in the high negative control group, who characteristically used high levels of prohibitions and commands, had children who performed relatively poorly overall on the language measures (i.e., MLU, number of bound morphemes, number of different words and use of language functions). In contrast, children of mothers in the HG and HC groups exhibited more advanced language usage overall. The relation between maternal and child language usage was mediated by parenting style for child pragmatics and partially for child grammar.

The limited effects of obstetrical and neonatal complications on conduct and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms in middle childhood.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a wide range of obstetrical and neonatal complications as well as socioeconomic variables on the behaviors characterized by attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, conduct disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder. METHOD: Data were collected on 7- to 8-year old twins, using multiple instruments assessing many areas of individual and family functioning. The influence of several aspects of prenatal care, labor and delivery, and early life were considered as well as indicators of socioeconomic status, such as family income and maternal education. RESULTS: The observed associations were stronger for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder than conduct disorder symptoms and stronger for females than males. Family income and gender significantly predicted both behavioral outcomes, whereas birth weight predicted attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms only. However, the presence of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct symptom behaviors were not associated with an occurrence of more obstetrical or neonatal complications as indicated by hierarchical linear modeling analyses. CONCLUSIONS: By school age, behavioral problems related to inattention, impulsivity, hyperactivity, defiance, and conduct are relatively unaffected by general adversity in the neonatal and perinatal periods.

Maternal sensory sensitivity and response bias in detecting change in infant facial expressions: maternal self-efficacy and infant gender labeling.

This study examined the role of maternal cognitive sets regarding infant gender on maternal response; participants were 69 mothers, each with a 6-month-old infant. Signal detection methodology was used to assess maternal sensory sensitivity and response bias to subtle changes in positive and negative infant facial expressions as a function of maternal self-efficacy, operationalized by low, moderate, and high illusory control, and maternal perceptions of infant gender, experimental manipulated through labeling. For the positive expression, mothers who received the female manipulation exhibited greater sensory sensitivity and responded with a less conservative response bias compared with mothers who received the male manipulation. For the negative expression, only mothers with high illusory control were differentially sensitive to the manipulation; those who received the male manipulation exhibited less sensory sensitivity than those who received the female manipulation. Results are discussed in the context of the gendered socialization of emotion.

Maternal sensory sensitivity, mother-infant 9-month interaction, infant attachment status: predictors of mother-toddler interaction at 24 months.

At 24-months of age, toddlers (N=62) and their mothers were observed in a free-play session to determine the contribution of (a) maternal sensory sensitivity to positive and negative infant facial expressions as measured in a signal detection task at 6 months, (b) maternal behavior and affect, infant behavior and affect, and dyadic interaction at 9 months, and (c) infant attachment status at 12 months in predicting maternal, toddler, and dyadic measures at 24 months. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that over and above early maternal behavior, which was predictive of later maternal behavior at 24 months, sensory sensitivity to the positive infant expression at 6 months predicted maternal behavior at 24 months and sensory sensitivity to both the positive and negative expression was associated with later maternal affect. Infant attachment status emerged as the variable which predicted toddler behavior and dyadic interaction at 24 months.