Reaching, posture, object exploration, and language in high- and low-risk infants

描述(由申请人提供)：在第一年的过程中，典型发育的婴儿迅速获得目标定向伸展和姿势控制的技能。这些技能是日益复杂的物体探索行为的基础，这些行为不仅产生关于世界上的物体的信息，而且产生关于婴儿自己的行为对这些物体的影响的信息。客体探索及其产生的知识反过来又是语言和交际后来发展的基础。这表明，在客体探索的中介下，REACH的出现和更大的姿势控制的逐步实现，可能会对后来的发展产生连锁和深远的影响，不仅对更高级的运动规划技能，而且在沟通和语言等通常不被认为受到早期运动发展影响的领域。相反，到达和姿势发展的延迟和损害可能会对物体探索产生负面影响，从而最终影响运动规划、语言和交流方面更高层次的发展。本申请中提出的工作旨在通过提供系统的纵向数据来阐明这些以前未被探索的发展路径，这些数据包括伸展能力的出现、姿势控制的发展、物体探索行为的变化，以及从2.5到36个月的运动规划、语言和交流的后来发展。这项研究具有创新性，因为它采用了密集的纵向家访观察计划，并结合了行为和运动学数据，以便能够密切跟踪到达、自坐和物体探索方面的进展。这一多方法办法将支持详细审查这些领域的规范和非典型发展轨迹，以及它们与发展领域内和跨发展领域的后发行为发展的关系。通过不仅关注发育正常的低风险(LR)婴儿，而且关注已知的沟通延迟(HR)高危婴儿(即，哥哥或姐姐被诊断为患有自闭症的婴儿)，我们将能够评估延迟的早期模式，并检查他们可能产生的任何负面连锁影响，这反过来将为改善临床实践和设计干预措施奠定基础，以补救早期延迟并避免其连锁影响。该项目的成功完成将导致：a)澄清姿势控制的发育、婴儿伸展能力的发展和第一年物体探索技能提高之间的关系的本质；b)说明HR婴儿姿势控制、伸展和物体探索的延迟和损害的性质和程度；以及c)确定在早期姿势和运动发育与后来的高阶运动、语言和沟通技能之间存在的任何预测关系，这些关系是由物体探索的增长所调节的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Over the course of the first year, typically-developing infants rapidly acquire skills in object-directed reaching and postural control. These skills underlie increasingly sophisticated object exploration behaviors that yield information not only about objects in the world but about the effects of the infant's own actions on those objects. Object exploration and the knowledge that it generates is, in turn, foundational for the later development of language and communication. This suggests that the emergence of reaching and the progressive achievement of greater postural control, mediated by object exploration, may have cascading and far-reaching effects on later development, not only on more advanced motor planning skills, but in domains such as communication and language that are not typically conceived as being influenced by early motor development. Conversely, delays and impairments in reaching and postural development may negatively impact object exploration and, therefore, the eventual development of later, higher-order developments in motor planning, language, and communication. The work proposed in this application is designed to shed light on these previously unexplored developmental pathways by providing systematic longitudinal data on the emergence of reaching, the growth of postural control, changes in object exploration behaviors, and later developments in motor planning, language, and communication from 2.5 to 36 months of age. The research is innovative because it employs a dense, longitudinal home-visit observation schedule and combines behavioral and kinematic data to permit close tracking of advances in reaching, self-sitting and object exploration. This multi-method approach will support a detailed examination of normative and atypical developmental trajectories in these domains and their relationship to the development of later-emerging behaviors both within and across domains of development. By focusing not only on typically-developing, low-risk (LR) infants but also on infants known to be at heightened risk (HR) for communicative delays (viz., infants with an older brother or sister diagnosed with Autistic Disorder), we will be able to assess early patterns of delay and examine any negative cascading effects that they may have This, in turn, will lay the groundwork for improvements in clinical practice and design of interventions to remediate early delays and avoid their cascading effects. Successful completion of this project will result in: a) clarification of the nature of the relationship between the growh of postural control, the development of infant reaching, and improvement in object exploration skills during the first year; b) specification of the nature and extent of delays and impairments i postural control, reaching, and object exploration in HR infants; and c) identification of any predictive relations existing between early postural and motor development and later, higher-order motor, language, and communication skills as mediated by the growth of object exploration.