Triadic joint attention (JA) refers to the shared focus of a child and an interlocutor on an object or event, accompanied by mutual awareness of this shared attention. Although JA is associated with early social interaction and later language development, its definitions and behavioral markers vary across studies and are often restricted to gaze and vocalizations, overlooking other communicative modalities. This longitudinal study followed 14 Swedish child-parent dyads during free play from 9 months to 3 years of age. Interactions were analyzed at both group and dyad levels. Vocal/verbal behavior, gesture, gaze, touch, and facial expression were annotated in detail. Time spent in JA was calculated across ages, and sequential analyses using odds ratios were conducted to examine how specific behaviors predicted the onset of JA. Joint attention increased steadily with age, accounting for 76% of interaction time at the group level by 3 years. Substantial variability was observed between dyads. Across ages, gaze combined with object-directed action, neutral affect, and close physical proximity were the strongest predictors of JA, although their relative contributions varied across dyads. These findings highlight the importance of multimodal analyses and attention to individual variability for understanding the developmental role of joint attention. The methodological approach, time-window sequential analysis, proved effective in identifying both group-level patterns and the diversity between and within dyads’ interactional styles. Moreover, analyses based on age measured in days indicated that age differences – even up to more than one month – played a minor role relative to this variability in dyadic interactional styles.

Joint Attention (JA) between children and their parents, are often related to the child’s later language skills (e.g., Carpenter et al., 1998). However, the definitions of JA, and the way it has been operationalized, differ between studies. Studies on similar cohorts and methodologies often end up with different results (Gabouer & Bortfeld, 2021; Astor & Gredbäck, 2022). It has been suggested that JA is a Western phenomenon rather than a universal prerequisite for language acquisition (Akhtar & Gernsbacher, 2007). The present study followed 14 Swedish child-parent dyads, longitudinally between 0;9 and 3;0 years of age, including the dyads' interactional use of vocal, gestural, gaze, touch, and facial expressions. The research questions address: i) which behaviors are involved in JA; ii) which behaviors predict JA, and iii) if JA can be detected through data-driven methods. We further investigate the relationship between multimodal variables and later language skills. The results indicate that some behaviors are more frequent in JA-sequences than outside of these; and, that parental behaviors predict JA during the period 9-15 months of age. We find a data-driven factor that summarizes behaviors that are related to JA; however, this factor seems to capture dyadic shared attention rather than triadic JA. The factor is predictive of two of the language measures (SCDI and PPVT), whereas JA predicts only one of these (SCDI). Furthermore, specific behaviors such as Child-gaze-at-object, carries the same - or higher - explanatory power for later language skills than does JA. The results are discussed in relation to previous findings and future goals.

References:

Akhtar, N., & Gernsbacher, M. A. (2007). Joint attention and vocabulary development: a critical look. Lang. Linguist. Compass 1, 195–207.

Astor & Gredebäck (2022). Chapter Seven - Gaze following in infancy: Five big questions that the field should answer, (Lockman, J.J, ed). Advances in Child Development and Behavior, Vol 63, pp. 191-223, https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.acdb.2022.04.003.

Carpenter, M., Nagell, K, and Tomasello, M. (1998), Social Cognition, Joint Attention, and Communicative Competence from 9 to 15 Months of Age, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 63.

Gabouer A, & Bortfeld H. (2021). Revisiting how we operationalize joint attention. Infant Behav Dev. May;63:101566.

Deaf and hard of hearing children with cochlear implants (CI) often display impaired spoken language skills. While a large number of studies investigated brain responses to sounds in this population, relatively few focused on semantic processing. Here we summarize and discuss findings in four studies of the N400, a cortical response that reflects semantic processing, in children with CI. A study with auditory target stimuli found N400 effects at delayed latencies at 12 months after implantation, but at 18 and 24 months after implantation effects had typical latencies. In studies with visual target stimuli N400 effects were larger than or similar to controls in children with CI, despite lower semantic abilities. We propose that in children with CI, the observed large N400 effect reflects a stronger reliance on top-down predictions, relative to bottom-up language processing. Recent behavioral studies of children and adults with CI suggest that top-down processing is a common compensatory strategy, but with distinct limitations such as being effortful. A majority of the studies have small sample sizes (N < 20), and only responses to image targets were studied repeatedly in similar paradigms. This precludes strong conclusions. We give suggestions for future research and ways to overcome the scarcity of participants, including extending research to children with conventional hearing aids, an understudied group.

Some triple-beat forms in Scandinavian Folk Music are characterized by non-isochronous beat durations: asymmetric beats. Theorists of folk music have suggested that the variability of rhythmic figures and asymmetric metre are fundamental to these forms. The aim of this study is to obtain a deeper understanding of the relationship between melodic structure and asymmetric metre by analysing semi-automatically annotated performances. Our study considers archive and contemporary recordings of fiddlers' different versions of the same musical pieces: polska tunes in a local Swedish tradition. Results show that asymmetric beat patterns are consistent between performances and that they correspond with structural features of rhythmic figures, such as the note density within beats. The present study goes beyond previous work by exploring the use of a state-of-the-art automatic music notation tool in a corpus study of Swedish traditional music, and by employing statistical methods for a comparative analysis of performances across different players.

Objectives: The primary aim was to examine how event-related potentials (ERPs) and mismatch negativity (MMN) change and develop over time among children with hearing loss (HL) using hearing aids (HAs) or cochlear implants (CIs). Children with normal hearing (NH) were tested as a reference group. Methods: This three-year follow-up study included 13 children with sensorineural HL (SNHL); 7 children using bilateral HAs and 6 children using CIs; and 10 children with NH as a reference group. ERPs were recorded at baseline and after three years. At time for the original study the children were approximately 5-8 years old and at the follow-up study 8-11 years old. ERP recordings and data processing were identical in both sessions. A standard stimulus alternated with five different deviants (gap, intensity, pitch, location and duration), presented in a pseudorandom sequence, thus following the multi-feature paradigm, Optimum-1. MMN was calculated from the average ERP of each deviant minus the standard stimuli. Repeated measures ANOVA was used for the statistical analyses and the results were based on samples within a specific time interval; 80-224 ms. Results: There was a statistically significant difference in the obligatory responses between the NH and HA groups at baseline, but this difference disappeared after three years in our follow-up study. The children with HA also showed a significant difference in mean ERP at baseline compared to follow-up, and significant differences between the deviants at follow-up but not at baseline. This suggests an improvement over time among the children with HAs. On the other hand, the children with CIs did not differ from the NH children at baseline, but after three years their mean ERP was significantly lower compared to both the children with HA and NH, indicating a reduced development of the central auditory system in this age span among the children with CIs. Regarding MMN, there was an interaction between the duration deviant and time for the children with HA, also indicating a possible improvement over time among the HA children. Conclusions: This three-year follow-up study shows neurophysiological differences between children with HL and children with NH. The results suggest a delay in the central auditory processing among the HA children compared to children with NH, but a possible catch-up, over time, and this potential may be worth to be utilized. Regarding the CI children, similar improvement in this age span is missing, meaning there are differences between the subgroups of children with HL, i.e. the children with HAs vs. CIs. The results highlight the importance of distinguishing between subgroups of children with HL in further research.

Associations between language and executive functions (EFs) are well-established but previous work has often focused more on EFs than on language. To further clarify the language–EF relationship, we assessed several aspects of language and EFs in 431 Swedish children aged 4–6, including selective auditory attention which was measured in an event-related potential paradigm. We also investigated potential associations to age, socioeconomic status (SES), bi-/multilingualism, sex and aspects of preschool attendance and quality. Language and EFs correlated weakly to moderately, indicating that relying on measures of vocabulary alone may overestimate the strength of the language–EF relationship. Contrary to predictions, we found no correlations between selective attention and EFs. There were however correlations between morphosyntactic accuracy and selective auditory attention which is in line with previous work and suggests a specific link between morphosyntax and the ability to suppress irrelevant stimuli. In Sweden, socioeconomic differences are rather small and preschool is universally available, but nevertheless, aspects of parental SES predicted children’s performance on all measures. Bi-/multilingual children performed lower on language also when controlling for SES, highlighting the need for interventions to reduce inequalities in educational outcomes already in preschool. A female advantage was found for both language and EFs, whereas preschool attendance and quality were not significantly related to outcome measures. Future work should include longitudinal studies of language and EF development, include children from diverse SES backgrounds and contribute toward a theoretical framework that further clarifies the language–EF relationship.

Objectives: The primary aim was to find out whether a computer-assisted reading intervention program with a phonic approach can affect event-related (ERPs) and mismatch negativity (MMN) in hearing impaired (HI) children using cochlear implants (CIs).

Methods: This study involved a test group of 15 HI children with CIs and a control group of 14 normal hearing (NH) children. The children were 4 years and 10 months to 8 years and 1 month old. ERPs were recorded immediately before and after 4 weeks of training with a computer-assisted reading intervention, GraphoGame. A multi-feature paradigm, Optimum-1, was used, i.e. a standard stimulus alternated with five different deviants: gap intensity, pitch, location and duration. MMN was calculated from the mean amplitude ERP of each deviant minus the standard stimulus response in a specific time interval, 80 - 224 ms. Repeated measures ANOVA was used for the statistical analysis.

Results: The results did not show any significant changes with the computerassisted training in the ERPs and MMNs among the HI children with CIs. The presence of both MMN and a positive mismatch response (pMMR), which might reflect an immaturity, complicates interpreting the results in this age group. Individually, there was a mix of MMNs and pMMRs among all participants, pre and post training, and the change of each deviant after intervention was not predictable.

Conclusions: There are no significant changes in ERP or MMN after intervention, however lack of significances must be interpreted with caution. Besides the presence of both MMNs and pMMRs, only modest changes are to be expected on an individual basis and small samples hinder making statistical conclusions regarding the training's effects. The study contributes to some more descriptive pieces of ERPs and MMNs among the HI children with CIs. The issues of MMN and pMMR are highlighted.

The amplitude of the event-related N1 wave decreases with repeated stimulation. This repetition-attenuation has not previously been investigated in response to variable auditory stimuli, nor has the relative impact of acoustic vs. perceptual category repetition been studied. In the present study, N1 repetition-attenuation was investigated for speech and spectrally rotated speech with varying degrees of acoustic and perceptual category variation. In the speech condition, participants (n = 19) listened to stimulus trains consisting of either the same vowel exemplar (no variability condition), different exemplars of the same vowel (low variability condition), or different exemplars of two different vowels (high variability condition). In the rotated speech condition, the spectrally rotated counterparts of the vowels were presented. Findings show N1 repetition-attenuation in the face of acoustic and perceptual category variability, but no impact of the degree of variability on the degree of N1 attenuation. Speech stimuli resulted in less attenuation than the acoustically matched non-speech stimuli, which is in line with previous findings. It remains unclear if the attenuation of the N1 wave is reduced as a result of stimuli being perceived as belonging to perceptual categories or as a result of some other characteristic of speech.

Background

During the preschool years, children’s development of skills like language and communication, executive functions, and socioemotional comprehension undergo dramatic development. Still, our knowledge of how these skills are enhanced is limited. The preschool contexts constitute a well-suited arena for investigating these skills and hold the potential for giving children an equal opportunity preparing for the school years to come. The present study compared two pedagogical methods in the Swedish preschool context as to their effect on language and communication, executive functions, socioemotional comprehension, and early math. The study targeted children in the age span four-to-six-year-old, with an additional focus on these children’s backgrounds in terms of socioeconomic status, age, gender, number of languages, time spent at preschool, and preschool start. An additional goal of the study was to add to prior research by aiming at disentangling the relationship between the investigated variables.

Method

The study constitutes a randomized controlled trial including 18 preschools and 29 preschool units, with a total of 431 children, and 98 teachers. The interventions lasted for 6 weeks, preceded by pre-testing and followed by post-testing of the children. Randomization was conducted on the level of preschool unit, to either of the two interventions or to control. The interventions consisted of a socioemotional and material learning paradigm (SEMLA) and a digitally implemented attention and math training paradigm (DIL). The preschools were further evaluated with ECERS-3. The main analysis was a series of univariate mixed regression models, where the nested structure of individuals, preschool units and preschools were modeled using random variables.

Results

The result of the intervention shows that neither of the two intervention paradigms had measurable effects on the targeted skills. However, there were results as to the follow-up questions, such as executive functions predicting all other variables (language and communication, socioemotional comprehension, and math). Background variables were related to each other in patterns congruent with earlier findings, such as socioeconomic status predicting outcome measures across the board. The results are discussed in relation to intervention fidelity, length of intervention, preschool quality, and the impact of background variables on children’s developmental trajectories and life prospects.

Within the field of developmental science, there is a general agreement of the need to work together across academic disciplinary boundaries in order to advance the understandings of how to optimize child development and learning. However, experience also shows that such collaborations may be challenging. This paper reports on the experiences of bidirectional collaboration between researchers in a multidisciplinary research team and between researchers and stakeholders, in the first randomized controlled trial in Swedish preschool. The objective of the trial was to investigate the effects of two pedagogical learning strategies evaluating language, communication, attention, executive functions and early math. The interdisciplinary team includes researchers from early childhood education, linguistics, developmental psychology and cognitive neuro science. Educational researchers and theorists within the field of early childhood education in Sweden have during the last two decades mainly undertaken small-scale qualitative praxis-oriented and participative research. There is a widespread skepticism with regards to some of the core principles in controlled intervention methodologies, including a strong resistance towards individual testing of children. Consequently unanticipated disagreements and conflicts arose within the research team, as RCT methodology requires the measurement of effects pre and post the intervention. The aim of this article is to discuss the conditions for bidirectional collaboration both between researchers and stakeholders and between researchers in the research team. The findings illustrate strategies and negotiations that emerged in order to address ontological and epistemological controversies and disagreements. These include (a) the negotiation of research ethics, (b) making divergences visible and learning from each other, (c) using a multi-epistemological and methodological approach as a complement to the RCT design and (d) the negotiation of research problems that are shared between educators and researchers.