Maternal Input Research Articles

E075 A linguistic based analysis of maternal morpheme input provided to children using cochlear implants

E075 A linguistic based analysis of maternal morpheme input provided to children using cochlear implants

Quantification of the maternal–embryonal nutritional relationship of elasmobranchs: case study of wobbegong sharks (genus Orectolobus)

The present study used wobbegong sharks (genus Orectolobus) to assess the threshold value proposed by previous research to categorize strict lecithotrophic from incipient histotrophic species. Totals of 236 and 135 ornate wobbegong Orectolobus ornatus and spotted wobbegong Orectolobus maculatus, respectively, were collected from the New South Wales commercial fishery between June 2003 and May 2006. Eight pregnant gulf wobbegong Orectolobus halei were also recorded outside the sampling period for the first time. The three species were reproductively synchronous with a gestation of c. 10-11 months. Embryos started to be macroscopically visible during January and external yolk sacs were fully absorbed by June to July when embryos were c. 200 mm total length (L(T) ). Internal yolk sacs were first observed during April to May when embryos were c. 160 mm L(T) , reached a peak during June and persisted in embryos immediately prior to parturition. The total wet mass from uterine egg to full-term embryos increased by 44-89% and 45-62%, whereas the total organic mass decreased by 32-33% and 26%, for O. ornatus and O. maculatus, respectively, suggesting that these species are strict lecithotrophic yolk-sac viviparous sharks with no maternal nutrient input. A review of the literature identified various issues and suggested that the previously proposed organic mass loss threshold value separating strict lecithotrophic species from incipient histotrophic species might not be appropriate. Instead, it is recommended that a combination of methods (e.g. estimation of organic mass gain or loss between ovarian egg and developed embryo, histology and electron microscopy of the uterus, radio-tracer assay and uterine fluid analysis throughout gestation) is used to discern between strict lecithotrophic and incipient histotrophic species.

A battle over brains

A battle over brains

The influence of child-directed speech in early trilingualism

Contexts of limited input such as trilingual families where a language is not spoken in the wider community but only by a reduced number of speakers in the home provide a unique opportunity to examine closely the relationship between a child's input and what she learns to say. Barnes reported on the relationship between maternal input and a trilingual child's use of the interrogative in English. Taking as a basis the fact that the child's language is likely to reflect that of the mother, the present study explores further patterns of similarity or difference between the language of parent and child. Instances of linguistic and cultural influence in the child's English which may be traced back to the language of the main provider of input are identified, giving insights into input-related processes and the way parental background may also influence the child's discourse skills in situations where input is limited to one parent in the home.

Maternal Input Choices and Child Cognitive Development: Testing for Reverse Causality

This paper assesses whether the results of child achievement tests affect maternal employment and the child-care choices of mothers with prekindergarten children. To test this hypothesis, it first incorporates into Bernal and Keane’s (2010) model the mother’s imperfect knowledge of the child’s cognitive ability endowment and possible mechanisms through which the mother may learn the child’s endowment. Then it uses a quasi-structural approach to form approximations to the mother’s employment and child-care decision rules and jointly estimate them with the child cognitive development production function and wage equation. Using a sample of single mothers from the NLSY79, it finds evidence that maternal employment and child-care decisions are sensitive to past achievement scores. In particular, a mother whose child has taken the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test before entering kindergarten and whose child’s standardized test score is above a certain threshold intends to use child care more and work more part-time hours immediately after observing the child’s performance on the achievement test.

Maternal label and gesture use affects acquisition of specific object names

Ten mothers were observed prospectively, interacting with their infants aged 0 ; 10 in two contexts (picture description and noun description). Maternal communicative behaviours were coded for volubility, gestural production and labelling style. Verbal labelling events were categorized into three exclusive categories: label only; label plus deictic gesture; label plus iconic gesture. We evaluated the predictive relations between maternal communicative style and children's subsequent acquisition of ten target nouns. Strong relations were observed between maternal communicative style and children's acquisition of the target nouns. Further, even controlling for maternal volubility and maternal labelling, maternal use of iconic gestures predicted the timing of acquisition of nouns in comprehension. These results support the proposition that maternal gestural input facilitates linguistic development, and suggest that such facilitation may be a function of gesture type.

Multiple pregnancies among women engaged in agriculture in Norway

Background. Methods. Results. !30 years, and were more likely to undergo invitro fertilization (IVF). Combined grain farming and seaso nal late blight warnings did not influence theprevalence of DZ pregnancies. Unexpectedly, the same climate variable, in combination with horticulture,was negatively associated with DZ pregnancies (PR 0.3; 95% confidence interval 0.1–0.7).Conclusion. Active Norwegian farmers seem to have a somewhat higher natural occurrence of DZ pregnanciesthan mothers in non-farming sectors of the agricultural population. After the late 1970s this situationwas reversed, mainly because the latter group consisted of more older first-time mothers, and probablywith a higher need of assisted fertility treatment. Interpretations are difficult concerning the inverse relationbetween DZ pregnancy and climatic conditions in horticulture.We identified 2,131 (11.2 per 1,000) multiple pregnancies, 1,322 (6.9) were classified as DZ. Theprevalence of DZ pregnancies was declining until the late 1970s, and increased thereafter. The agriculturalpopulation of Norway is heterogeneous along two dimensions, with a difference between farmers and nonfarmers(mainly engaged in forestry), and a difference according to degree of maternal work input on thefarm holding. Farmers, in particular active farmers, had more DZ pregnancies than non-farmers early in thestudy period; this ratio was reversed late in the study period. Non-farmers had a much higher temporalincrease in the proportion of first-time mothers who were By record linkage of national registers in Norway, we identified 246,043 farm holders andspouses born between 1925 and 1971 in agricultural censuses and the population register. In this population,190,258 pregnancies were recorded in the Medical Birth Registry 1967-91. The prevalences ofmultiple pregnancy, subdivided in DZ and monozygotic (MZ) pregnancies, were examined in strata ofseveral determinants. Exposure, defined as the combination of grain farming and categories of seasonalfungal warnings, was based on data on farm activity and on local fungal warnings in the growth seasons.Adjusted prevalence ratios (PR) served as estimates of association.SUMMARY The worldwide occurrence of dizygotic (DZ) multiple pregnancies has increased since 1980as a consequence of assisted fertilization techniques. An opposite influence by environmental factors yetunidentified has been a suspected explanation of decreased multiple pregnancies in several countriesduring 1960-1980. The aim of our study was to describe multiple, in particular DZ, pregnancy patterns inthe Norwegian agricultural population between 1967 and 1991, and to investigate the hypothesis that grainproduction under climatic conditions favoring fungal growth causes a decline in DZ pregnancies.

Emotional Availability in Parent–Child Dyads Where Children are Blind

SYNOPSIS Objective. The objective of this study was to identify the challenges experienced by parents in adapting to the information needs of their children who are blind. Both the content of what parents say and the affective qualities of their interactions are important for children who are blind and therefore dependent on these means of understanding self and others. Design. In the case studies, the play interactions of four mother–child pairs were recorded. Children were aged 18 to 19 months and were congenitally blind with no light perception. The qualities of the interaction were evaluated using the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS), and maternal language use was analyzed for references to the child and others. Results. EAS ratings of sensitivity and structuring suggest that parents experience some challenges in responding to children's information needs and structuring play to increase understanding. Analysis of maternal language use showed the prevalence of child-centered references and few references to others or to the mothers themselves. Conclusion. Without visual cues, children who are blind need explicit information about feelings and intentions of others. Evaluation of emotional availability and maternal language input serves to both highlight individual differences and to provide a sound basis for early intervention and support.

Maternal input and lexical development: the case of deaf pre‐schoolers

Mothers facilitate their young hearing children's word learning by making reference explicit for novel words through physical designation (e.g., with deictic gestures) and by isolating words in simple syntactic frames. As children's language skills develop, such modifications decrease. Less is known about hearing mothers' support to their language-delayed deaf children. The current study investigated whether hearing mothers tailored their input to suit their deaf children's word-learning ability as well as their children's word knowledge. Maternal input to 25 oral deaf children was examined. Word-learning ability was assessed in an experimental task that tested the children's ability to novel map (i.e., infer that a novel word refers to a novel object without physical designation). Word knowledge was assessed by maternal report. Mothers whose children did not infer word meaning through novel mapping made meaning more explicit than mothers of children who could learn through novel mapping. Specifically, these mothers were more likely to designate referents physically and use simple syntax. For all children, mothers were more likely to make the meaning of novel words more transparent than familiar words. The results indicate that hearing mothers were sensitive to the needs of their deaf children. This sensitivity was to children's word knowledge. Mothers seemed aware of what words were in their children's lexicon. Mothers did not rely on their children's ability to use novel mapping, even for the linguistically advanced children.

Conversational correlates of children's acquisition of mental verbs and a theory of mind

The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed examination of the ways mothers use mental verbs in conversations with three- and four-year-old children, and to link these usages to the children's developing understanding of mental verbs and a theory of mind. Sixty three- and four-year-olds, either attending preschool (PS) or not (NPS) were given tasks assessing mental verb distinctions and false belief. Their mothers' mental verb use was coded for (a) frequency, (b) type of utterance, (c) type of subordinate clause, (d) the person of the subject of the verb, and (e) the certainty of think. Within the three-year-olds, the NPS children performed significantly better on the mental verb comprehension task; moreover, compared to the PS mothers, the NPS mothers were found to use: (1) less statements and more questions, (2) less first person utterances and more second person utterances, and (3) think in its `very certain' form less often. In regression analyses, children's mental verb and false belief performance were positively predicted by maternal mental verb 1) questions, and 2) single clause utterances; the children's performance was negatively predicted by statements. These findings indicate how maternal input has the potential to promote or hinder children's understanding of the mind.

Cumulative Social Risk, Parenting, and Infant Development in Rural Low-Income Communities

SYNOPSIS Objective. The extent to which the severity of exposure to social risk is related to parenting and cognitive development in the first 15 months of an infant's life was studied in a representative diverse sample of families in two rural poor regions in the United States. Design. One thousand two hundred ninety-two families were followed for the first 15 months of the infant's life. Results. Evidence supported a pathway from risk severity through maternal sensitivity and warmth, language and learning activities, and maternal language to child outcomes, with the language and learning activities providing the most consistent independent prediction. Race, age, and geographic isolation moderated the associations between risk and different aspects of parenting. Both level and change in maternal engagement, maternal language input, and overall learning environment were related to early cognitive development. Cumulative risk measured as the mean of risk variables was a stronger predictor of parenting and infant development than when measured as the count of risk factors. Conclusion. Severity of risk exposure is negatively related to parenting and to child development for infants as young as 15 months of age. This study provides evidence supporting a pathway from risk severity through parenting to child outcomes and suggests that both initial parenting skills and change in parenting skills during infancy predict infants' cognitive skills.

Multiple influences on children's nutritional deficiencies: A systems perspective

Under-nutrition and obesity are multi-determined. The multiple determinants of either under-nutrition or obesity are linked, thus forming a system of influences. How a system of linked multiple influences functions is illustrated with specific reference to early nutritional deficiencies. The traditional explanation that child nutritional deficiencies are due to food scarcity or a lack of family economic resources has been increasingly questioned. In the UNICEF extended care model, deficiencies in children's nutritional intake are due to family economic and food resources and to specific caregiver resources. The role of three caregiver resources, maternal education, intelligence and depression are reviewed. Evidence also is presented on the need to take into account child characteristics, as an additional set of influences on nutritional deficiencies. Using a systems perspective this review documents how the relation to nutrition of family and caregiver resources and child characteristics can be mediated or moderated by alternative linked influences such as cultural characteristics, maternal input into family economic decisions and social support networks. Based on this review a revised extended care model is presented, explicitly integrating child characteristics and specific mediating and moderating links between multiple predictors of child nutritional deficiencies. This is followed by a brief discussion on how a systems perspective can also apply to the study of childhood obesity.

Domestic Violence, Couple Interaction and Children’s Health in Latin America

This paper examines the relationships between several measures of couple interaction and children’s health. We hypothesize that more maternal input in decision-making, joint discussion of health issues, and the absence of violence and male control are conducive to better child health. Mortality and nutritional status are used as measures of child health. Analyses are based on Demographic and Health Surveys in five Latin American countries (Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Haiti and Nicaragua). Violence is the best interaction predictor of poor nutrition and lack of female autonomy is the best predictor of higher mortality. Joint discussion of family planning and joint decision-making about household issues are also predictive of child health. Male controlling behavior did not have a strong relationship with health outcomes in most countries. Overall, findings indicate that positive couple interaction is associated with improved health outcomes for children.

Mothers’ Use of Cognitive State Verbs in Picture‐Book Reading and the Development of Children’s Understanding of Mind: A Longitudinal Study

Mothers read stories to their children (N=41) aged between 3.3 years and 5.11 years old, and children then completed two false-belief tasks. One year later, mothers read a story to 37 of those children who were also given four tasks to assess their advanced understanding of mental states. Mothers' early use of cognitive verbs in picture-book reading correlated with their children's later understanding of mental states. Some pragmatic aspects of maternal input correlated with children's later outcomes. Two different factors in mothers' cognitive discourse were identified, suggesting a zone of proximal development in children's understanding of mental states.

Siblicide in Serengeti spotted hyenas: a long-term study of maternal input and cub survival

In the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, large fluctuations of prey abundance alters the frequency at which spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) cubs are nursed and thus the total level of maternal input available to them. Maternal input is high when mothers feed on high densities of locally available migratory herbivores and low when mothers travel up to 70 km to forage. Using data from 19 cub cohorts on the incidence of siblicide (from monitoring the survival of 609 cubs in twin litters) and cub growth rates (from 195 cubs in twin litters) as a measure of maternal input, we demonstrate that the incidence of siblicide increased as average cohort growth rate declined. In total, there were 37 siblicides in 384 litters (9% of litters). When both cubs were alive, total maternal input in siblicidal litters was significantly lower than in non-siblicidal litters and the mean share of the dominant sib of 64.6% was significantly higher than the mean of 52.1% for dominant sibs of non-siblicidal litters. After siblicide, growth rates of siblicide victors substantially increased, demonstrating that mothers did not reduce maternal input after litter reduction. As a result, siblicide victors achieved a long-term growth rate similar to that of singletons and thus significantly increased their expected survival. We conclude that in spotted hyenas, high maternal input in lactation has favoured the evolution of facultative siblicide in populations inhabiting areas with low or fluctuating food resources.

Endosperm: an integrator of seed growth and development

Plant reproduction relies on interactions between parental and zygotic components. Elaborate reciprocal signaling pathways enable coordination of the genetic programs between these components. A first and important step in this communication is the tight control of cell cycle events in the gametes prior to fertilization. This prepares for coordinated fertilization and the initiation of seed development. The dialog between the various actors of reproduction extends after fertilization, with the endosperm taking a central role. Importantly, the endosperm mediates a maternal input that is based on memory of the transcriptional states of imprinted genes, which is crucial for harmonious seed growth. Our current knowledge suggests that the endosperm is an integrator of the different components and genetic programs that are involved in seed development.

Hybridization between subspecies of waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus) in zones of overlap with limited introgression

Two subspecies of waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus), common (Kobus ellipsiprymnus ellipsiprymnus) and defassa (Kobus ellipsiprymnus defassa), are recognized based on differences in rump pattern, coat colour and geographical distribution. These forms are parapatrically distributed with an area of range overlap in East Africa, where phenotypically intermediate populations occur. Variation in 478 bp of the mitochondrial DNA control region and 14 polymorphic microsatellite loci were used to describe the genetic structure and phylogeographical pattern of the species, and to assess if the intermediate populations are the results of hybridization. In total, 186 individuals from 11 localities were analysed. A high degree of genetic differentiation was found between subspecies, although this was most evident from the microsatellite data. Hybridization was suggested in the phenotypically and geographically intermediate Nairobi NP population in Kenya. A neighbour-joining (NJ) tree based on microsatellite population genetic distances grouped Nairobi between the common and defassa populations, and a Bayesian analysis clearly showed introgression. Individuals sampled in Samburu NP, Kenya, had a common waterbuck phenotype, but introgression was suggested by both markers. Although a high degree of maternal defassa input was indicated from the sequence data, the Samburu population grouped with the common waterbuck in the microsatellite population genetic distance tree, with high support. Analyses of linkage disequilibrium and maximum-likelihood estimates of genetic drift suggested that admixture between subspecies is a recent event. The fact that introgression is limited between subspecies could be caused by chromosomal differences, hindering gene flow between common and defassa waterbuck.

Input Frequency and Word Truncation in Child Japanese: Structural and Lexical Effects

Recent research indicates that the statistical properties of the input have an impact on the prosodic shape of young children's word production. However, it is still not clear whether the effects of input statistics emerge from the frequency of prosodic structures or the frequency of individual lexical items. This issue is investigated in this study by analyzing cases of word truncation spontaneously produced by three Japanese-speaking children (1;5-2;1) and the frequencies of relevant words and prosodic word structures produced by their mothers. A significant correlation was found between children's truncation rates for individual target words and the frequency of the same words in the maternal input, but not between the truncation rates for different prosodic word structures and the frequencies of the corresponding structures in maternal speech. The size and shape of truncated outputs were better explained in terms of their correspondence to the target structures than the frequencies of shorter forms in the input. The results indicate that variation in early word truncation is systematically related at least to the lexical frequency of the target words, and that input frequency has a clearer connection to what truncates than how it truncates.

Surface Position, Not Signaling from Surrounding Maternal Tissues, Specifies Aleurone Epidermal Cell Fate in Maize

Maize (Zea mays) endosperm consists of an epidermal-like surface layer of aleurone cells, an underlying body of starchy endosperm cells, and a basal layer of transfer cells. To determine whether surrounding maternal tissues perform a role in specifying endosperm cell fates, a maize endosperm organ culture technique was established whereby the developing endosperm is completely removed from surrounding maternal tissues. Using cell type-specific fluorescence markers, we show that aleurone cell fate specification occurs exclusively in response to surface position and does not require specific, continued maternal signal input. The starchy endosperm and aleurone cell fates are freely interchangeable throughout the lifespan of the endosperm, with internalized aleurone cells converting to starchy endosperm cells and with starchy endosperm cells that become positioned at the surface converting to aleurone cells. In contrast to aleurone and starchy endosperm cells, transfer cells fail to develop in in vitro-grown endosperm, supporting earlier indications that maternal tissue interaction is required to fully differentiate this cell type. Several parameters confirm that the maize endosperm organ cultures described herein retain the main developmental features of in planta endosperm, including fidelity of aleurone mutant phenotypes, temporal and spatial control of cell type-specific fluorescent markers, specificity of cell type transcripts, and control of mitotic cell divisions.

Relations Between Maternal Input and Theory of Mind Understanding in Deaf Children

This study investigates the relationship between theory of mind (ToM) skills in deaf children and input from their hearing mothers. Twenty-two hearing mothers and their deaf children (ages 4-10 years) participated in tasks designed to elicit talk about the mind. The mothers' mental state talk was compared with that of 26 mothers with hearing children (ages 4-6 years). The frequency of mothers' mental talk was correlated with deaf children's performance on ToM tasks, after controlling for effects of child language and age. Maternal sign proficiency was correlated with child language, false belief, and mothers' talk about the mind. Findings are discussed in relation to experiential accounts of ToM development and roles of maternal talk in children's social understanding.