Work

Associations between Temperament and Social Responsiveness in Young Children

Year: 2012

Type: article

Abstract: Recent research has demonstrated that social responsiveness (comprised of social awareness, social information processing, reciprocal social communication, social motivation, and repetitive/restricted interests) is continuously distributed within the general population. In the present study, we consider temperament as a co-occurring source of individual differences in social responsiveness in young children. The sample consisted of 62 infants assessed at 2-, 3-, and 4-years-old. Measures of temperament were obtained at each age (Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire, Children's Behavior Questionnaire) and social responsiveness was measured at 4-years-old (Social Responsiveness Scale; SRS). Multivariate patterns of association between components of temperament and social responsiveness were observed at each age, with overall findings in line with the broader literature examining temperament and socio-development associations. Importantly, these results provide support for the usefulness of temperament as a relevant source of variability in social responsiveness, as measured by the SRS, in typically developing young children.

Source: Infant and Child Development

DOI: 10.1002/icd.1785

Authors: Brenda Salley, Angela Miller, Martha Ann Bell

Institutions: University of Kansas, Fertility & Lifespan Medical Institute, Virginia Tech

Language: English

Topic: Autism Spectrum Disorder Research

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: Infant Temperament and Cognitive Development, Kansas Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (KIDDRC), Psychobiology of Cognitive Development