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Attending to Learn: Longitudinal Associations Between Infant Attention, Caregiver-Child Interaction Quality, and Language Development

Wed, April 7, 2:45 to 4:15pm EDT (2:45 to 4:15pm EDT), Virtual

Abstract

Introduction
Caregiver-child interactions are powerful features of infants’ early language-learning environments. Of particular importance is social contingency, or prompt and meaningful social responses to infants that result in back-and-forth exchanges. While the majority of research on contingency has examined the behavior of the adult (e.g. Dunham et al., 1993; Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2001), recent research has begun to investigate how infants’ early skills may facilitate contingent interactions with caregivers (e.g., Salley et al., 2016).
Hypotheses
Here, we ask two research questions. First, do infant attentional skills at 6 months relate to social contingency during interactions with caregivers at 12 months? We hypothesize that they do, and that sustained attention would be particularly important. Second, do infant attentional skills at 6 months relate to child language at 18 months through the quality of the interaction at 12 months? Again, we hypothesize that they do, especially sustained attention.
Study Population
To answer these questions, we used data from three timepoints of a longitudinal study of attention development (n = 106). Participants were from a range of socioeconomic and language backgrounds.
Methods
Attention was assessed at 6-months and 12-months using two measures from the Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP; Bahrick, Todd, & Soska, 2018): sustained attention (duration of looking at either of two lateral events after a central fixation event) and attention shifting (speed of gaze-shifting from the central fixation event to either lateral event). These measures represent two skills that develop in the first year of life: the disengagement of attention from one stimulus to direct attention to another stimulus and the maintenance of focus in the presence of distractors. The quality of caregiver-child interaction was assessed at 12 months using the global measure of fluency and connectedness (F&C) to capture the smoothness and balance of both verbal and non-verbal communication (Adamson et al., 2016). Expressive vocabulary at 18 months was measured via parent-report using the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (MCDI; Fenson et al., 2006).
Results
Data coding and imputation of missing data for this project is ongoing. Preliminary regression analyses using the current sample (n = 51) suggested that attention shifting at 6 months related to 12-month F&C, controlling for maternal education, and 12-month attention shifting ( = -0.27, t(1,47) = -2.22, p = .032, R2 = .07). No significant relation emerged between sustained attention and F&C. This talk will present findings from the complete data set as well as the direct and indirect effects with expressive language at 18 months.
These preliminary findings suggest that early infant attention contributes to the quality of caregiver-child interaction at 12-months, when infants start talking. Interestingly, attention shifting, not sustained attention, was associated with interaction quality. Attention shifting may better measure attentional control at 6 months compared to sustained attention which may be driven by salient stimuli. Infants’ ability to quickly shift attentional focus, perhaps to follow caregivers’ “conversational” contributions, may also encourage contingent responding from the caregiver. Overall, these findings suggest a role for infants in maintaining F&C during interactions with caregivers. 

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