In this paper we explore early musical behaviors through the lenses of the recently emerged "4E" approach to mind, which sees cognitive processes as Embodied, Embedded, Enacted, and Extended. In doing so, we draw from a range of interdisciplinary research, engaging in critical and constructive discussions with both new findings and existing positions. In particular, we refer to observational re...

The neurological evaluation of infants and children differs from that of older children and adults principally because of the phenomenon of development. The process of development alters the neurological behaviors and functions that would be expected at different ages. Development also changes the findings on physical examination. Finally, the natural history and manifestation of abnormal funct...

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are well-known for engagement in challenging behaviors. Unfortunately, due to its absence as a criterion for diagnosis in the DSM-IV-TR, little attention has been paid to the endorsement rates of such behaviors. However, a recently developed measure to assist in the diagnosis of infants and toddlers with autism and PDD-NOS – the Baby and Infant Scr...

Adults use social-group membership to make inductive inferences about the properties of novel individuals, and this tendency is well established by preschool years. Recent evidence suggests that infants attend features associated with social groups interpret an agents’ actions. The current study sought replicate extend these findings clarifying whether infants’ responses in prior studies reflec...

To present fundamental data, spontaneous smiles and spontaneous laughs (smiles accompanied by vocal sounds) were cross-sectionally observed in 10 newborn infants and longitudinally observed in six infants. Unilateral spontaneous smiles were more common than bilateral smiles in neonates, but by 2 months almost all spontaneous smiles were bilateral. All spontaneous laughs were bilateral. "Spontan...

To evaluate within-family differences in maternal affective behavior toward siblings, face-to-face interactions were observed between 39 mothers and their firstborn and second-born infants at 2 months of age. Mother and infant affect was coded on a 1-s time base with behavioral descriptors. Mothers were more positive with second-born infants, and second-born infants were more positive than were...

Deficits in social orienting (i.e., gazing toward caregivers) during dyadic interactions and reactivity to stressful stimuli have been identified as behavioral correlates of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors in older children. The goal of the current study was to investigate infants' mother-directed gaze and reactivity during the face-to-face and still-f...

Micro-analytic research on intuitive parenting behaviors has shed light on the temporal dynamics of parent and child interactions. Observations have shown that parents possess remarkable implicit communicative abilities allowing them to adapt to the clues infants give and therefore stimulate the development of many of the infants' abilities, such as communication skills. This work focused on ob...