Infant Development

Technology is now ubiquitous with almost 3.2 billion people of the world’s current population online (International
Telecommunications Union, 2015). Whilst technology offers opportunities for education and entertainment, its
impact on vulnerable populations such as the developing infant requires specific, careful consideration. Fourteen
percent of infants (aged 6 to 23 months) watch at least two hours of media per day and one third of children under 3
have a television (TV) in their bedroom (Zimmerman, Christakis, & Meltzoff, 2007a). Twenty-five percent of
3-year-olds go online daily (Bernstein & Levine, 2011) and 28% of 3 to 4-year-olds now use tablet computers
(Ofcom, 2014). Children are growing up with a digital foundation, they are interacting with and immersed in
cyberspace where they learn, entertain themselves and play. During the first three years of life, the brain creates
some 700 new neural connections every second. Synapse formation for key developmental functions such as
hearing, language and cognition peak during this time, creating a critical foundation for higher-level functions
(Zero to Three, 2015). Very young children are becoming experts at using technology and are true digital natives.
Yet what long-term effects will this early exposure have from a developmental perspective? Researchers are now
questioning how interactive media may affect children both mentally and physically (American Academy of
Paediatrics, 2011; Radesky, Schumacher, & Zuckerman, 2014). Screen time research has traditionally focused on
the impact of TV on children (Linebarger & Walker, 2005). However, TV is a passive experience and results may
not be applicable compared to highly interactive screen technology such as tablets and smartphones, thus the
uniqueness of mobile technology needs to be considered. Experts in Canada, France, Australia, Japan, and South
Korea have urged limits on children’s screen time and legislation has recently been introduced in Taiwan to limit
children’s unhealthy use of electronic devices (Boseley, 2012; Locker, 2015; Tanimura, Okuma, & Kyoshima,
2007). Research and recommendations are urgently required regarding the impact of technology on infants and very
young children, particularly as the effect of traditional and interactive screen time is potentially developmentally
and cyberpsychologically significant in this age group.

Adults who move together to a shared musical beat synchronously as opposed to asynchronously are subsequently more likely to display prosocial behaviors toward each other. The development of musical behaviors during infancy has been described previously, but the social implications of such behaviors in infancy have been little studied. In Experiment 1, each of 48 14-month-old infants was held by an assistant and gently bounced to music while facing the experimenter, who bounced either in-synchrony or out-of-synchrony with the way the infant was bounced. The infants were then placed in a situation in which they had the opportunity to help the experimenter by handing objects to her that she had ‘accidently’ dropped. We found that 14-month-old infants were more likely to engage in altruistic behavior and help the experimenter after having been bounced to music in synchrony with her, compared to infants who were bounced to music asynchronously with her. The results of Experiment 2, using anti-phase bouncing, suggest that this is due to the contingency of the synchronous movements as opposed to movement symmetry. These findings support the hypothesis that interpersonal motor synchrony might be one key component of musical engagement that encourages social bonds among group members, and suggest that this motor synchrony to music may promote the very early development of altruistic behavior.

The first aim of this paper is to present a theory of development
of the dialogical self in which change originates in creative innovations
during intrapersonal and interpersonal dialogues that highlight the self
(Fogel, 1993, 2001b). Dialogues form into regularly recurring routines,
called frames, that are either creative (changing, developing) or rigid
(unchanging). Second, we argue that there is a non-verbal form of the
dialogical self that first appears in early infancy. Finally, we show how the
dialogical self develops systematically over the first 18 months of life by
presenting a case study of some creative and rigid frames of one infant girl
and her mother.