Showing papers by "Marc H. Bornstein published in 1992"

Maternal responsiveness to infants in three societies: the United States, France, and Japan

Abstract: This study examines and compares prominent characteristics of maternal responsiveness to infant activity during home-based naturalistic interactions of mother-infant dyads in New York City, Paris, and Tokyo. Both culture-general and culture-specific patterns of responsiveness emerged. For example, in all 3 locales infants behaved similarly, mothers also behaved similarly with respect to a hierarchy of response types, and mothers and infants manifest both specificity and mutual appropriateness in their interactions: Mothers responded to infants' exploration of the environment with encouragement to the environment, to infants' vocalizing nondistress with imitation, and to infants' vocalizing distress with nurturance. Differences in maternal responsiveness among cultures occurred to infant looking rather than to infant vocalizing and in mothers' emphasizing dyadic versus extradyadic loci of interaction. Universals of maternal responsiveness, potential sources of cultural variation, and implications of similarities and differences in responsiveness for child development in different cultural contexts are discussed.

The problem of prenatal cocaine exposure. A rush to judgment.

Abstract: VALID concern about the high rate of cocaine use among pregnant women has resulted in an apparent rush to judgment about the extent and permanency of specific effects of intrauterine cocaine exposure on newborns. Predictions of an adverse developmental outcome for these children are being made despite a lack of supportive scientific evidence. Whatever the true outcome, we are concerned that premature conclusions about the severity and universality of cocaine effects are in themselves potentially harmful to children. Although the prevalence of cocaine/crack use is declining (in 1990 an estimated 6.6 million individuals reported use in the preceding year compared with 12 million in 1988), certain groups continue to use the drug at high or increasing rates. 1,2 Also, more women of childbearing age seem to be affected by cocaine use compared with previous drug epidemics. 3 At present no reliable national estimates of the extent or patterns of cocaine

Functional analysis of the contents of maternal speech to infants of 5 and 13 months in four cultures: Argentina, France, Japan, and the United States.

Abstract: Maternal speech to infants of 2 ages in 4 cultures was examined to probe how infant age and cultural variation influence the contents of that speech. Argentine, French, Japanese, and U.S. American mothers were individually videotaped in naturalistic free-play interactions at home with their 5- and 13-month-old infants, maternal speech was transcribed, and the contents classified as affect salient or information salient

Language and play at one year: A comparison of toddlers and mothers in the United States and Japan

Abstract: The present study compared American and Japanese toddlers and their mothers on dimensions of language and play when the toddlers were 13 months of age. In both cultures and in both domains, individual variation in toddlers was associated with individual variation in mothers. In general, the frequency and variance of language and play activities were similar in the two groups. However, two notable cultural differences emerged. American toddlers were more advanced in both their productive and receptive vocabularies, and this cultural difference was matched by the tendency for American mothers to label and desciibe properties, objects, and events in the environment more frequently. In contrast, Japanese toddlers were more advanced on symbolic play, and their advanced play was matched by more advanced play in Japanese mothers, particularly for "other-directed" acts of pretence. These findings suggest that during this early period of symbolic development, as expressed through language and play, American and Ja...

Toddler language and play in the second year: Stability, covariation and influences of parenting.

Abstract: This paper reports the findings of a prospective longitudinal study of the development of representation and communication in toddlers from middle-class Caucasian families. Toddler language and pla...

Mères et bébés pendant la première année : une étude longitudinale de deux types d'interaction

Abstract: On etudie ici comment, dans le flux des interactions entre une mere et son bebe, des relations specifiques peuvent etre mises en evidence entre cerains comportements du bebe et certains comportements de la mere ; plus precisement, on contraste ici les echanges qui ne font pas intervenir d'objets physiques et les echanges qui les font intervenir. Trente dyades ont ete filmees, dans leurs activites habituelles a la maison, lorsque le bebe avait 5 puis 8 mois. On a etabli, a partir des enregistrements, la frequence de differents comportements de l'enfant et de la mere, orientes vers leur partenaire ou vers les objets. L'activite des meres s'organise, aux deux âges, autour des verbalisations adressees au bebe et des ajustements a son activite. Par contre l'activite des bebes, assez globale a 5 mois, se differencie a 8 mois. Enfin l'orientation de l'attention des bebes de 5 mois vers des objets depend du soutien que la mere fournit, cependant qu'a 8 mois l'enfant controle seul son attention. Ces resultats sont discutes en termes de specificite des etayages maternels du developpement cognitif du bebe. Mots cles : interaction mere-bebe, attention, etayage, specificite.