Abstract
A total of 189 infants (93 girls, 96 boys) were investigated longitudinally at ages 4, 8, 12, 18, and 24 months to examine the effects of soothing techniques (i.e., distracting infants by presenting novel objects) and rough-and-tumble play on the early development of temperament, particularly the emergence of Effortful Control. We used questionnaires to examine the frequency of use of soothing techniques and rough-and-tumble play. The Infant Behavior Questionnaire Revised (IBQ-R) and the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ) were used to assess temperament. A strong relationship was found between parental ratings of their infant's Orienting/Regulation and later Effortful Control. Caregivers’ use of distracting as a soothing technique during infancy was associated with higher Negative Affect in toddlers at 24 months. More surgent infants were involved in more rough-and-tumble play, with rough-and-tumble play frequencies positively correlated with surgency scores at 24 months.
Highlights
Considerable progress has been made recently in understanding the attention system of the human brain and its consequences for human development
In an effort to understand the effect of interchanges with caregivers on the early development of temperament, we longitudinally examined the soothing behaviors used by caregivers as well as rough-and-tumble play along with three dimensions of infant or toddler temperament: Positive Emotionality/Surgency, Negative Emotionality, and Orienting/Effortful Control
Consistent with prior studies, we found theoretical and conceptual continuity in temperamental factors across the Infant Behavior Questionnaire Revised (IBQ-R) and Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ) data (Figure 2)
Summary
Considerable progress has been made recently in understanding the attention system of the human brain and its consequences for human development. The relationship between the development of attentional networks and the regulation of emotion has been emphasized very early in life from the perspective of temperament [4]. Recent evidence suggests that during infancy, control may involve primarily the brain’s orienting attention network, including the parietal lobe and frontal eye fields [6]. The efficiency of this orienting network develops dramatically in the first year of life (e.g., [7,8,9]). There is empirical evidence for this shift because early evidence of self-regulation during infancy (e.g., looking away and self-soothing) correlates with the orienting network as measured by the attention network test at age 7 [10, 11]
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