Contingent Responsiveness Research Articles

Effects of familiar contingencies on infants' vocal behavior in new communicative contexts.

Recently, there has been a growing interest in understanding the mechanisms underlying vocal learning in songbirds and human infants. Research has demonstrated how contingent social feedback from social partners to immature vocalizations can play a role during vocal learning in both brown-headed cowbirds and prelinguistic infants. Contingencies in social interactions, particularly familiar contingencies, are important in developing preferences for social partners and shaping social exchanges Bigelow and Birch [1999]. Infant Behavior & Development 22:367-382]; however, little is known about how familiar contingencies that individuals experience during communicative exchanges play a role in new contexts. The current study examined differences in caregiver response patterns to infant vocal behavior and assessed how familiar contingencies influenced infant vocal behavior in novel communicative exchanges with caregivers. Infants were systematically exposed to high and low social feedback schedules during a play session. Results revealed the frequency of caregiver responsiveness to which infants were accustomed to affected infant vocal production during novel communicative situations. Infants with high responding caregivers vocalized with more mature vocalizations and used their vocalizations differently than infants with low responding caregivers during the high, but not low, response period. Specifically, infants with high responding caregivers directed more of their vocalizations at their caregiver and looked more at their caregiver after vocalizing, an indication of anticipating contingent responding. These results suggest that infants with high responding caregivers learned the association between vocalizing and contingent responses during the novel communicative interaction. This study demonstrates the need to understand how infants who experience a variety of contingencies in everyday interactions with caregivers carry over to other interactive situations.

Relationship dimensions of the ‘Down syndrome advantage’

Some researchers have proposed an 'advantage' for parents of children with Down syndrome over parents of children with other intellectual disabilities, especially in relation to experiencing less parenting stress. Others have maintained that these differences are an artefact of demographic and related differences. This study extends the investigation of possible differences in dimensions of parenting stress and also examines whether differences exist in maternal and child contingent responsiveness during mother-child interaction in these two groups. Mothers of children with Down syndrome (n = 43) and undifferentiated developmental disabilities (n = 54) completed measures of children's adaptive functioning and behaviour problems, parenting stress and maternal social support. Observers rated the contingent interactions between mothers and children using the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale. Once mother's age, education and social support as well as child adaptive functioning and behaviour problems were considered, neither parent nor child related parenting stress demonstrated an advantage for parents of children with Down syndrome. However, a 'Down syndrome advantage' was apparent for both maternal and child contingent responsiveness after accounting for maternal demographic and contextual variables and child attributes. Children with Down syndrome and their mothers have more positive interactions than children with other developmental disabilities, both in terms of the responsiveness of mothers and of child responses contingent on maternal behaviour. These findings suggest that both children with Down syndrome themselves and their mothers are contributing to a Down syndrome advantage.

“My Baby & Me”: Effects of an early, comprehensive parenting intervention on at-risk mothers and their children.

This study examined the efficacy of a multimodule parenting intervention, "My Baby & Me," that began prenatally and continued until children reached 2.5 years of age. The intervention targeted specific parenting skills designed to alter trajectories of maternal and child development. Of 361 high-risk mothers (193 adolescents, 168 adults) enrolled across 4 states, half were randomly assigned to the high-intensity (HI) home visitation coaching program (55 sessions), and half to a low-intensity (LI) condition that included monthly phone calls from a coach, printed informational materials, and community resource referrals. Videotaped observations of mother-child play were coded at 5 time points for multiple maternal and child behaviors and skills. Compared to mothers in the LI group, mothers in the HI group showed higher levels of contingent responsiveness, higher quality verbal stimulation, and more verbal scaffolding by 30 months, with higher levels of warmth and greater decreases in physical intrusiveness and negativity when their children were 24 months. By 30 months, children in the HI group showed more rapid increases and higher levels of engagement with the environment, expressive language skills, and social engagement, as well as more complex toy play and fewer problem behaviors than those in the LI group. Gains in maternal responsive behaviors mediated the effects of the intervention on child outcomes. Results were comparable for adolescent and adult mothers. A strong theoretical framework, consistent focus on maternal responsiveness, high dosage, and trusting relationships with coaches are thought to explain the positive outcomes.

A Especificação do Responder Contingente do Terapeuta na Psicoterapia Analítica Funcional

O responder contingente do terapeuta aos comportamentos clinicamente relevantes (CRB) do cliente consiste no mecanismo de mudança clínica na Psicoterapia Analítica Funcional (FAP). Os procedimentos clínicos são resumidos em cinco regras para o terapeuta, que têm o objetivo de maximizar a frequência de ocorrência de CRBs. A interação lógica da FAP apresenta as cinco regras desdobradas em 12 passos, os quais descrevem as respostas do terapeuta e seus efeitos no comportamento do cliente. Apesar dos avanços no refinamento da descrição da FAP e da validação empírica de seu mecanismo de mudança clínica, a tarefa de especificar o responder contingente do terapeuta permanece inacabada. O objetivo deste artigo é apresentar a interação lógica e discuti-la propondo alternativas de operacionalização do responder contingente do terapeuta aos comportamentos clinicamente relevantes relacionados ao problema clínico. O método consistiu em examinar os passos da interação lógica da FAP para hipotetizar alternativas de ação para o terapeuta em resposta ao comportamento problema que ocorre na sessão. Quatro alternativas de resposta do terapeuta são listadas e exemplificadas com verbalizações extraídas de registros de interações terapeuta/cliente. Discutem-se os possíveis efeitos indesejáveis provocados pela descontinuidade do reforço ao comportamento problema e sugerem-se questões para estudos futuros

Sharing information books with kindergartners: The role of parents’ extra-textual talk and socioeconomic status

The purpose of the study was to explore how features of parent–child extra-textual talk during information book-sharing might vary across different socioeconomic backgrounds, and to determine if certain interactional patterns might mediate their effects on children's receptive and expressive vocabulary development. Sixty parents and their 5-year-old children were audio-recorded reading an unfamiliar information book in their home. Holistic coding on six parent and two child engagement scales, examining low to high cognitive demanding talk was conducted. Results indicated that lexical richness and contingent responsiveness positively predicted receptive and expressive vocabulary. Further, contingent responsiveness appeared to mediate the influence of socioeconomic status on children's receptive and expressive vocabulary, suggesting that positive environmental contexts and supportive parent–child interactions can have a powerful influence on children's development.

Maternal responsiveness and sensitivity reconsidered: Some is more

Is it always or necessarily the case that common and important parenting practices are better, insofar as they occur more often, or worse, because they occur less often? Perhaps, less is more, or some is more. To address this question, 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.

Relations Among Teachers’ Emotion Socialization Beliefs and Practices and Preschoolers’ Emotional Competence

Research Findings: Utilizing a 3-part model of emotion socialization that included modeling, contingent responding, and teaching, this study examined the associations between 44 teachers’ self-reported and observed emotion socialization practices and 326 preschoolers’ emotion knowledge and observed emotional behavior. Multilevel analyses revealed that the majority of the variance in the children's emotion knowledge scores and observed emotional behavior was predicted by factors within, rather than between, classrooms. Teachers’ use of all 3 emotion socialization techniques did contribute to the prediction of the children's scores; however, the nature of these associations differed by children's age and gender. Practice or Policy: The development of children's emotional competence is a complex, multifaceted process in which many interaction partners play a role. Early childhood teachers act as emotion socialization agents for the children in their care by modeling emotions, responding either supportively or punitively to children's expressions of emotions, and engaging in direct instruction regarding emotional experience. This research may provide a basis for potential future interventions designed to assist teachers in developing their own emotion socialization skills so that they can be more effective emotion socialization agents for the children in their care.

From Action to Interaction: Infant Object Exploration and Mothers' Contingent Responsiveness

We examined maternal contingent responsiveness to infant object exploration in 190 mother-infant pairs from diverse cultural communities. Dyads were video-recorded during book-sharing and play when infants were 14 mo. Researchers coded the temporal onsets and offsets of infant and mother object exploration and mothers' referential (e.g., “That's a bead”) and regulatory (e.g., “Stop it”) language. The times when infant or mother were neither exploring objects nor communicating were classified as “off task.” Sequential analysis was used to examine whether certain maternal behaviors were more (or less) likely to follow infant object exploration relative to chance, to one another, and to times when infants were off task. Mothers were more likely to explore objects and use referential language in response to infant object exploration than to use regulatory language or be off task, and maternal behaviors were reduced in the context of infants being off task. Additionally, mothers coordinated their object exploration with referential language specifically; thus, mothers' responses to infants were didactic and multimodal. Infant object exploration elicits reciprocal object exploration and informative verbal input from mothers, illustrating the active role infants play in their social experiences.

Acoustic properties of comfort sounds of 3-month-old Cameroonian (Nso) and German infants

Little is known about the influence of cultural factors on early vocal development. This study aims to investigate comfort sounds of infants reared in very different cultural environments, namely Cameroonian Nso and German. These cultures differ not only with respect to their languages, but also with respect to the amount of language used in early interactional situations with infants as well as the caregivers’ contingent responsiveness to infant communicative signals. Participants were 14 German and 19 Nso healthy 3-month-old infants. About 800 comfort sounds were objectively analyzed with respect to melodic and spectral properties. No significant differences were found for mean F0, FM-amplitude, melody structure, and produced sound categories. Significant minor difference was found for mean sound duration. The results suggest a high similarity of the observed sound features between both groups and point to relatively universal developmental processes and a comparable state of vocal development at 3 months of age. However, signs of specific acoustic qualities in Nso infant vocalization were found that could indicate an early influence of cultural factors. Further studies are necessary to test this hypothesis.

What are you or who are you? The emergence of social interaction between dog and an unidentified moving object (UMO).

Robots offer new possibilities for investigating animal social behaviour. This method enhances controllability and reproducibility of experimental techniques, and it allows also the experimental separation of the effects of bodily appearance (embodiment) and behaviour. In the present study we examined dogs’ interactive behaviour in a problem solving task (in which the dog has no access to the food) with three different social partners, two of which were robots and the third a human behaving in a robot-like manner. The Mechanical UMO (Unidentified Moving Object) and the Mechanical Human differed only in their embodiment, but showed similar behaviour toward the dog. In contrast, the Social UMO was interactive, showed contingent responsiveness and goal-directed behaviour and moved along varied routes. The dogs showed shorter looking and touching duration, but increased gaze alternation toward the Mechanical Human than to the Mechanical UMO. This suggests that dogs’ interactive behaviour may have been affected by previous experience with typical humans. We found that dogs also looked longer and showed more gaze alternations between the food and the Social UMO compared to the Mechanical UMO. These results suggest that dogs form expectations about an unfamiliar moving object within a short period of time and they recognise some social aspects of UMOs’ behaviour. This is the first evidence that interactive behaviour of a robot is important for evoking dogs’ social responsiveness.

Reciprocal Imitation Following Adult Imitation by Children with Autism

This study examined the effects of adult imitation and adult playfulness on the imitation, social attention and initiation of new behaviours by non‐verbal preschoolers with autism. Videotapes taken from a previous study were recoded for the adult's imitation and playful behaviour and the children's imitation, social attention (looking at the adult's actions) and initiation of new behaviours. In the original study, twenty non‐verbal, 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children with autism were randomly assigned to an imitation or a contingent responsivity group. Both groups of children engaged in an intervention phase (during which the adult imitated the children or contingently responded to them) and a subsequent spontaneous play phase (during which the adult interacted spontaneously with the children). ANOVA for the current study revealed that the imitation group children versus the contingent responsivity group children spent a greater percent time showing social attention and initiating new behaviours during the intervention phase and showing social attention and imitating the adult's behaviours during the subsequent spontaneous play phase. A correlation analysis yielded significant correlations between the percent time the adult imitated the child during the intervention phase and the percent time the child showed social attention during the same intervention phase and imitating the adult during the subsequent spontaneous play phase. Adult imitation and playfulness during the spontaneous play phase were also correlated with the children's social attention during that phase. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Dynamics of Age and Sex in the Development of Mother–Infant Vocal Communication Between 3 and 11 Months

We followed the nondistressed vocalization dynamics of 30 mother–infant dyads observed in a naturalistic setting using multiple time points between 3 and 11 months to identify subtle relationships between age, sex and maternal behavior ending by 1 year of age with diverging trajectories of nondistressed vocalization. We observed no mean differences between boys and girls in frequency or duration of nondistressed vocalizations at any one time period. However, while these parameters were essentially static for boys, girls showed a quadratic developmental curve, declining in frequency and duration between 6 and 8 months and climbing above their early starting point by 9–11 months. Mothers of boys showed a linear decrease in the duration of their speech over the 9 months of our study. In contrast, mothers of girls showed quadratic patterns of ultimately increasing vocalization frequency and duration, over the months 3–11 of development. Finally, boys' and girls' vocalization contingent to maternal speech revealed no differences. Mothers of boys, however, did not change significantly over time, while mothers of girls showed an increase in contingent responsiveness from 3–5 months to 9–11 months and from 6–8 months to 9–11 months. A similar pattern was followed for object‐related maternal vocal responses.

Child Caregivers’ Contingent Responsiveness Behaviors During Interactions With Toddlers Within Three Day Care Contexts

Increasingly, children spend much of their day in the care of adults other than their parents, such as child care providers. Consequently, it is important to analyze nonparental adults’ use of strategies suggested to foster language development, such as contingent responsiveness, during interactions with young children. This study examined child caregivers’ contingent responsiveness behaviors that followed toddlers’ communicative attempts within unstructured, semistructured, and structured daycare contexts. Child caregiver behaviors were coded as (a) no response (appropriate), (b) no response (inappropriate), (c) noncontingent response (appropriate), (d) noncontingent response (inappropriate), (e) contingent response and termination of the interaction (appropriate), (f) contingent response and termination of the interaction (inappropriate), and (g) contingent response leading to maintenance of the communicative interaction. Important similarities and differences in child caregivers’ contingent responsiveness behaviors for the three contexts suggest a need to prepare child caregivers to use strategies such as contingent responsiveness across contexts to facilitate language development.

Predictors of diagnosis of child psychiatric disorder in adult–infant social-communicative interaction at 12 months

To establish which social interactive behaviours predict later psychiatric diagnosis, we examined 180 videos of a parent-infant interaction when children were aged one year, from within the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort. Sixty of the videos involved infants who were later diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder at seven years, and 120 were a randomly selected sex-matched control group. Interactive behaviours for both the caregiver and the one year old infant were coded from the videos according to eight holistic categories of interpersonal engagement: Well-being, Contingent Responsiveness, Cooperativeness, Involvement, Activity, Playfulness, Fussiness, and Speech. Lower levels of adult activity and speech in interaction at one year significantly predicted overall diagnosis of child psychiatric disorder.

The Role of Caregiver Contingent Responsiveness in Promoting Compliance in Young Children

The purpose of this study was to examine relations between parents' contingent responding and the behavior of their young children, in the context of other relevant parenting behaviors. Parents were observed interacting with their 3-6 year-old children during two laboratory tasks. Parent responses to child bids were classified into four mutually exclusive categories: contingent responses, non-contingent non-negative responses, negative responses, and no response. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine relations between contingent responsiveness and child compliance, after accounting for the quality of parent directives and parent negativity. Contingent responsiveness was uniquely associated with greater child compliance for mothers during both tasks and for fathers during one task. An interaction effect was found, indicating that fathers' responsiveness during the second task was associated with greater child compliance in older, but not younger, children. Implications for clinical practice and future research directions are discussed.

Mother–infant socioemotional contingent responding in families by adoption and birth

Contingencies of three maternal and two infant socioemotional behaviors that are universal components of mother–infant interaction were investigated at 5 months in 62 mothers (31 who had adopted domestically and 31 who had given birth) and their first children (16 males in each group). Patterns of contingent responding were largely comparable in dyads by adoption and birth, although the two groups of mothers responded differentially to the two types of infant signals. Mothers in both groups were more responsive than infants in social and vocal interactions, but infants were more responsive in maternal speech–infant attention interactions. Family type×gender statistical interactions suggested a possible differential role of infant gender in establishing mother–infant contingencies in families by adoption and birth.

Association between locomotor response to novelty and light reinforcement: Sensory reinforcement as a rodent model of sensation seeking

BackgroundThe human personality trait of sensation seeking (SS) indicates an attraction to novel sensations and experiences, and is associated with greater likelihood of drug abuse. In rodents, locomotor activity in a novel environment (Loco) has been found to predict drug self-administration (SA), and has been hypothesized to be a translational model of human SS. Previously, we reported (Gancarz et al., 2011 [12]) that high responder (HR) animals responded more than low responder (LR) animals to produce a response contingent light onset. The primary goal of this paper was a detailed analysis of the association between Loco and light contingent responding in a large sample of rats (n=93). MethodsMale rats were pre-exposed to dark operant test chambers for ten 30min sessions and baseline levels of responding (snout poking) were determined. The pre-exposure phase was followed by 6 sessions during which active responding produced a visual sensory reinforcer (VSR; 5s light onset) according to a variable interval 1min schedule of reinforcement. After completion of the VSR phase, Loco was tested. ResultsThe activating effects (total responding) of light were associated with Loco, but the response guiding effects (proportion of active responding) of the light were not. In addition, HR rats habituated more slowly in both the VSR and Loco tests than LR rats. ConclusionsThese data indicate that VSR measures aspects of the rodent's response to novel sensations and experiences that are not detected by Loco. These data provide some evidence for the use of light reinforcement as an animal model of SS.

Maternal Sensitivity: Evidence of Stability across Time, Contexts, and Measurement Instruments

Although maternal sensitivity is widely understood as having a direct impact on the quality of the mother–child relationship, empirical evidence supporting this has been inconsistent, possibly because of varied definitions of the construct and limitations of measurements. The Maternal Behavior Q‐Set (MBQS) appears to be a promising measure of sensitivity, showing associations with attachment security (r = .60) higher than those reported (r = .24) in a highly‐regarded meta‐analysis of other sensitivity measures. The present study aimed to further establish the validity and utility of the MBQS by exploring its consistency with a contingency‐based measure of sensitivity, while also seeking evidence of stability across contexts and times. Seventy‐two mothers and their 10‐month‐olds participated in a procedure that included two episodes of Floor Play and Reunions following maternal differential treatment. Mothers were scored on contingent responsivity and warmth. At 12 months, the dyads underwent the Strange Situation Procedure where sensitivity was assessed using a 72‐item version of the MBQS. The findings revealed the stability of maternal sensitivity across times, contexts, and measures. However, linkages applied only to 10‐month scores from reunion, not play, episodes, supporting Pederson and Moran's (1995) assertion that high‐demand circumstances reveal more meaningful differences in maternal sensitivity. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Association of maternal interaction with emotional regulation in 4- and 9-month infants during the Still Face Paradigm

This study used the Still Face Paradigm to investigate the relationship of maternal interaction on infants’ emotion regulation responses. Seventy infant–mother dyads were seen at 4 months and 25 of these same dyads were re-evaluated at 9 months. Maternal interactions were coded for attention seeking and contingent responding. Emotional regulation was described by infant stress reaction and overall positive affect. Results indicated that at both 4 and 9 months mothers who used more contingent responding interactions had infants who showed more positive affect. In contrast, mothers who used more attention seeking play had infants who showed less positive affect after the Still Face Paradigm. Patterns of stress reaction were reversed, as mothers who used more attention seeking play had infants with less negative affect. Implications for intervention and emotional regulation patterns over time are discussed.

Transitional probability analysis of two Child Behavior Analytic Therapy cases.

Clinical behavior analysis (Dougher, 1993; Kanter & Woods, 2009) assumes behavior analysis as the fundamental science and Skinner's Radical Behaviorism as the philosophical foundation for clinical psychology. In Brazil, clinical behavior analytic ideas have produced Behavior Analytic Therapy (BAT; Meyer et al., 2010), and more recently, Child Behavior Analytic Therapy (CBAT; Del Prette, 2011). From these theoretical and clinical standpoints, a fundamental issue in therapy is that therapy may produce rule-governed or contingency-shaped changes in client behavior (Skinner, 1974). While much of talk therapy may be seen as the therapist providing rules for clients to follow to change their behavior, regarding contingency-shaped behavior when the client behavior to be targeted for change occurs in session the therapist can provide consequences, thus shaping it as already suggested by Krasner (1962) in therapist as a social reinforcing machine. This shaping process is specified in more detail in Functional Analytical Psychotherapy, or FAP (Kohlenberg & Tsai, 1991; Tsai, Kohlenberg, Kanter, Kohlenberg, Follette, & Callaghan, 2009). FAP's basic tenet is that the client's problem behaviors that appear in their daily relationships will also appear in therapy where the therapist can shape behavior through differential and contingent responding. The authors state that generalization occurs due to similarities between the therapy setting and the client's other environments, which implies that improvements achieved in session will generalize to the relationships that take place out-of-session. Therapist contingent responding is key to FAP and may start with general contingent reinforcement of broad classes of behavior relevant to simply to coming to therapy, and then reinforcement is funneled to focus more directly on clinically relevant behaviors relevant to the goals of treatment identified by the client and therapist (Follette, Naugle, & Callaghan, 1996). Recently, researchers have called for the identification of empirically supported principles of change (Rosen & Davison, 2003) and the development and use of novel methodologies in psychotherapy research, such as the direct observation of the therapeutic process instead of the use of randomized controlled trials or other group designs, to identify these change principles. Because contingent responding by definition is a change process that occurs in the turn-by-turn client-therapist interaction in session, it is a mechanism that is well suited to exploration by direct observation of the therapeutic process. It is important to note that contingent responding is a mechanism that is not specific to FAP but is fundamental to BAT and CBAT, broadly defined, and may be seen by behaviorists as occurring in, and potentially important to, all forms of therapy. For example, an early classic process study by Truax (1966) used direct observation of the therapeutic process to explore the use of contingent responding in sessions conducted by Carl Rogers, a therapist well known for espousing the belief that the therapist's behavior should be unconditional as per his humanistic theory (Rogers, 1957) rather than contingent on client behavior as per behavioral theory. Truax, using independent coders blind to the study hypothesis, found that Rogers in fact contingently responded to specific client behaviors with empathy and positive regard, and that these responses functioned as reinforcement as indicated by the fact that the client behaviors responded to in this fashion increased in frequency over the course of therapy. More recently, Busch, Kanter, Callaghan, Baruch and Weeks (2009) employed a similar micro-process analysis to explore the hypothesized change mechanism of FAP. They used the FAP Rating Scale (FAPRS; Callaghan & Follette, 2008) to code client clinically relevant behavior and therapist effective responding to in-session client behavior on a turn-by-turn basis over the course of therapy for a depressed adult client who received three phases of therapy: Assessment, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), and FAP. …