Effects of infant and caregiving conditions on an infant's focused exploration of toys

An infant's exploration of toys, in the context of the mother's regulating actions, is a setting for cognitive and social development. The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of infant and caregiving conditions to the quantity of focused exploration of toys for 8-month-old infants. Inf ant biological conditions were gender and birth weight, including a range o f both prematurely and term-born infants. The infant behavioural condition was responsiveness to care. Caregiving conditions included mother's educati on, the supportive, stimulating and sustaining quality of the home environm ent, and the attention-directing and -supporting behaviour of the mother du ring play. The direct and indirect effects of these conditions on focused t oy exploration were modelled using multiple regression. The sample of 79 mo ther-infant dyads included 43 full-term infants and 36 premature infants. T he mother's attention-directing behaviour was a significant negative predic tor of focused toy exploration. Infant birth weight did not have a signific ant direct effect on focused toy exploration. Birth weight did not interact significantly with responsiveness to care or with any of the caregiving en vironment conditions to affect focused toy exploration. Further study of in fant responses to the mother's attention-regulating and emotion-regulating behaviour during play is recommended to better understand how the caregivin g environment supports or thwarts focused toy exploration.