Natural Variability in Parent-Child Puzzle Play at Home

Here, we observed 3- to 4-year-old children (N=31) and their parents playing with puzzles at home during a zoom session to provide insight into the variability of the kinds of puzzles children have in their home, and the variability in how children and their parents play with spatial toys. We observed a large amount of variability in both children and parents’ behaviors, and in the puzzles they selected. Further, we found relations between parents’ and children’s behaviors. For example, parents provided more scaffolding behaviors for younger children and parents’ persistence-focused language was related to more child attempts after failure. Altogether, the present work shows how using methods of observing children at a distance, we can gain insight into the environment in which they are developing. The results are discussed in terms of how variability in spatial toys and spatial play during naturalistic interactions can help us contextualize the conclusions we draw from lab-based studies.

Hybrid Harmony: A Multi-Person Neurofeedback Application for Interpersonal Synchrony

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in studies measuring brain activity, physiological responses, and/or movement data from multiple individuals during social interaction. For example, so-called “hyperscanning” research has demonstrated that brain activity may become synchronized across people as a function of a range of factors. Such findings not only underscore the potential of hyperscanning techniques to capture meaningful aspects of naturalistic interactions, but also raise the possibility that hyperscanning can be leveraged as a tool to help improve such naturalistic interactions. Building on our previous work showing that exposing dyads to real-time inter-brain synchrony neurofeedback may help boost their interpersonal connectedness, we describe the biofeedback application Hybrid Harmony, a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) that supports the simultaneous recording of multiple neurophysiological datastreams and the real-time visualization and sonification of inter-subject synchrony. We report results from 236 dyads experiencing synchrony neurofeedback during naturalistic face-to-face interactions, and show that pairs' social closeness and affective personality traits can be reliably captured with the inter-brain synchrony neurofeedback protocol, which incorporates several different online inter-subject connectivity analyses that can be applied interchangeably. Hybrid Harmony can be used by researchers who wish to study the effects of synchrony biofeedback, and by biofeedback artists and serious game developers who wish to incorporate multiplayer situations into their practice.

Emotional Expression in Children With ASD: A Pre-Study on a Two-Group Pre-Post-Test Design Comparing Robot-Based and Computer-Based Training

Several studies have found a delay in the development of facial emotion recognition and expression in children with an autism spectrum condition (ASC). Several interventions have been designed to help children to fill this gap. Most of them adopt technological devices (i.e., robots, computers, and avatars) as social mediators and reported evidence of improvement. Few interventions have aimed at promoting emotion recognition and expression abilities and, among these, most have focused on emotion recognition. Moreover, a crucial point is the generalization of the ability acquired during treatment to naturalistic interactions. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of two technological-based interventions focused on the expression of basic emotions comparing a robot-based type of training with a “hybrid” computer-based one. Furthermore, we explored the engagement of the hybrid technological device introduced in the study as an intermediate step to facilitate the generalization of the acquired competencies in naturalistic settings. A two-group pre-post-test design was applied to a sample of 12 children (M = 9.33; ds = 2.19) with autism. The children were included in one of the two groups: group 1 received a robot-based type of training (n = 6); and group 2 received a computer-based type of training (n = 6). Pre- and post-intervention evaluations (i.e., time) of facial expression and production of four basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, and anger) were performed. Non-parametric ANOVAs found significant time effects between pre- and post-interventions on the ability to recognize sadness [t(1) = 7.35, p = 0.006; pre: M (ds) = 4.58 (0.51); post: M (ds) = 5], and to express happiness [t(1) = 5.72, p = 0.016; pre: M (ds) = 3.25 (1.81); post: M (ds) = 4.25 (1.76)], and sadness [t(1) = 10.89, p < 0; pre: M (ds) = 1.5 (1.32); post: M (ds) = 3.42 (1.78)]. The group*time interactions were significant for fear [t(1) = 1.019, p = 0.03] and anger expression [t(1) = 1.039, p = 0.03]. However, Mann–Whitney comparisons did not show significant differences between robot-based and computer-based training. Finally, no difference was found in the levels of engagement comparing the two groups in terms of the number of voice prompts given during interventions. Albeit the results are preliminary and should be interpreted with caution, this study suggests that two types of technology-based training, one mediated via a humanoid robot and the other via a pre-settled video of a peer, perform similarly in promoting facial recognition and expression of basic emotions in children with an ASC. The findings represent the first step to generalize the abilities acquired in a laboratory-trained situation to naturalistic interactions.

A Crosslinguistic Study of Child Code-Switching within the Noun Phrase: A Usage-Based Perspective

This paper aims to investigate whether language use can account for the differences in code-switching within the article-noun phrase in children exposed to English and German, French and Russian, and English and Polish. It investigates two aspects of language use: equivalence and segmentation. Four children’s speech is derived from corpora of naturalistic interactions recorded between the ages of two and three and used as a source of the children’s article-noun phrases. We demonstrate that children’s CS cannot be fully explained by structural equivalence in each two languages: there is CS in French-Russian although French does, and Russian does not, use articles. We also demonstrate that language pairs which use higher numbers of articles types, and therefore have more segmented article-noun phrases, are also more open to switching. Lastly, we show that longitudinal use of monolingual articles-noun phrases corresponds with the trends in the use of bilingual article-noun phrases. The German-English child only starts to mix English articles once they become more established in monolingual combinations while the French-Russian child ceases to mix French proto-articles with Russian nouns once target articles enter frequent use. These findings are discussed in the context of other studies which report code-switching across different language pairs.

Effectively Integrating Direct Instruction and Discrete Trial Training Across Routines, Activities, and Environments

With young children, there is often an instructional focus on naturalistic interactions between the child and environment. In special education, there are times when direct instruction (di) and discrete trial training (DTT) are both needed, requiring a balance of explicit DTT and child-initiated instruction. This article discusses what individually and developmentally appropriate di and DTT practice and real-life examples look and sound like, and explains how to embed them across routines, activities, and environments.

What Mothers Do After Infants Vocalize: Implications for Vocal Development or Word Learning?

Purpose The goal of this study was to analyze verbal and nonverbal maternal response types following infant vocalizations in younger (ages 4–8 months) versus older (ages 10–14 months) infant groups and their potential implications for infant vocal development or word learning. Method Maternal response types that occurred within 3 s of infant vocalizations were examined in this cross-sectional study of naturalistic interactions in 35 mother–infant dyads. Response types were defined as vocally responsive to infant vocalizations (i.e., responsive vocal behaviors), not responsive to infant vocalizations directly (nonresponsive vocal behaviors), and silences. Mothers' nonverbal actions associated with each response type were also examined. Subcategories of these verbal and nonverbal response types were examined in relation to infant age group. Results The occurrence of responsive and nonresponsive verbal subcategory types differed by infant age group. When verbally responsive to infant vocalizations, mothers commented on younger infants' vowel and consonant–vowel vocalizations, but with older infants, mothers identified or named the referents of their vocalizations. When nonresponsive to vocalizations directly, mothers commented on younger infants' activities but redirected older infants' behaviors or commented on their movements. Silence after infant vocalizations was infrequent. Mothers' nonverbal actions associated with each response type were primarily object related and did not differ by age group. Conclusions Evaluating response type subcategories by age group indicated mothers did not respond differentially (verbally or nonverbally) to vowel or consonant–vowel vocalizations. Overall, the results suggest mothers' verbal and nonverbal response types may be more likely to facilitate word learning than vocal development.

Towards a usage-based model of early code-switching: Evidence from three language pairs

Usage-based studies trace children’s early language back to slot-and-frame patterns which dominate spontaneous language use. We apply the Traceback method to data from three bilingual children with English as one of their languages and Polish, German, or Finnish as the other to examine what these children’s code-switching has in common and how it differs in light of the genealogical distance between the languages used. Their bilingual constructions are derived from individual corpora of naturalistic interactions of each child respectively and traced back to monolingual language produced previously to establish whether they are unprocessed chunks or partially schematic units. Based on this, we propose a model of switching which helps us to distinguish between the qualitative aspects of bilingual use in these two types of combinations. Our results show that all three children filter out some mixing occurring in chunks before these give basis to longer units. Whatever bilingual combinations remain frozen in those units can be explained by phonological overlap of the children’s two languages, which is highest in the acquisition of English-German due to their genealogical proximity.