DHB: From Social Routines to Early Language: Tracking Neural, Cognitive, and Family Influences from Infancy into Preschool

人类婴儿必须学习复杂的技能才能有效地与父母和其他人互动，但这些社交技能在不同的婴儿中出现的年龄略有不同。我们如何解释这种可变性？婴儿如何关注他们的社交世界，从而学习与他人有效互动的惯例？该项目跟踪了一组45名健康的学步儿童，他们从3个月到18个月大，接受了各种对社会刺激的认知和情感反应的广泛测试。同样的婴儿在家中与父母互动时也经常被观察到。目前的项目是问，这些蹒跚学步的孩子正在形成的社交技能如何反映出他们在婴儿时期在认知和情感方面的个体差异，以及他们父母提供的不同社交输入。该项目专注于18到24个月大婴儿语言和模仿技能的变化，以及这些技能背后的大脑动力学。从3个月大开始进行测试和观察的幼儿将被邀请在20到24个月大的时候再次参加。新的会议将在加州大学圣地亚哥分校使用一个独特的系统：一个移动脑动力学(MOBI)设备，用于同时记录两个人的脑电(脑电)和身体运动跟踪数据。该项目将使用这个系统来记录幼儿和父母参与三种类型的互动：1)幼儿跟随父母的指点(或视线)，2)幼儿对父母说的话做出反应，3)幼儿模仿父母的简单动作。这些互动对蹒跚学步的孩子来说是重要的社交成就。高级脑电分析将对幼儿和父母头皮上测量的电位进行分析。同时，特殊的摄像头将记录它们头部和手臂的位置。因此，这种设计将产生幼儿和父母在互动时大脑电生理(反映他们的思维和情感反应)和身体位置的连续变化记录。此外，蹒跚学步的孩子将完成一系列行为和语言测试。这个项目将开创一种研究幼儿社会发展的新范式，并提供关于早期社会注意行为如何与早期语言和模仿相关，以及这些关系背后的大脑过程的最复杂和最完整的数据。这一结果将对幼儿教育、发育障碍的治疗和育儿实践产生影响。

Human infants must learn complex skills to interact effectively with parents and other humans, but these social skills emerge at somewhat different ages in different infants. How can we explain this variability? How do infants attend to their social world, and thereby learn routines to interact effectively with other people? This project follows a group of 45 healthy toddlers who have been tested extensively from 3 to 18 months of age on a variety of changing cognitive and emotional responses to social stimuli. The same infants have been observed regularly at home in interactions with their parents. The current project asks how these toddlers' emerging social skills reflect their individual differences in cognition and emotion as infants, and on the different social input provided by their parents. The project focuses on changes in language and imitation skills from 18 to 24 months of age, and the brain dynamics that underlie these skills. The toddlers who were tested and observed starting at 3 months of age will be invited to participate again at 20 to 24 months of age. New sessions will use a unique system at UC San Diego: a Mobile Brain Dynamics (MoBI) facility for recording EEG (electroencephalographic) and body motion-tracking data simultaneously from two people. The project will use this system to record toddlers and parents as they engage in three types of interactions: 1) toddlers following parent's pointing (or line-of-gaze), 2) toddlers reacting to words spoken by parents, and 3) toddlers imitating parents' simple actions. These interactions represent important social achievements for toddlers. Advanced EEG analysis will be performed on electrical potentials measured on toddlers' and parents' scalps. At the same time special cameras will record the positions of their heads and arms. This design will therefore yield a continuous record of changes in the toddlers' and parents' brain electrophysiology (reflecting their thinking and emotional reactions) and body positions as they interact. In addition, toddlers will complete a battery of behavioral and language tests. This project will pioneer a new paradigm for studying the social development of young children, and yield the most complex and complete data available on how early social-attention behaviors relate to early language and imitation, and brain processes underlying these relations. The results will have implications for early childhood education, treatment of developmental disabilities, and parenting practices.