Associations between competency to learn contingencies in three- to six-month-old infants and developmental outcomes when aged one and two years

Lissmann I, Korntheuer P, Lohaus A. Assoziation zwischen der Kompetenz zur Kontingenzerkennung im Alter von drei und sechs Monaten und dem Entwicklungsstand im Alter von ein und zwei Jahren. Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie. 2007;39(4):187-195.This paper reports the results of a longitudinal study with 87 infants aged 3 to 24 months who were assessed at 3, 6, 12, and 24 months of age. The aim of the study was to analyse the associations between early competencies to detect nonsocial contingencies at three and six months and the developmental status when aged one and two years and the language development at two years of age. The competency to detect nonsocial contingencies was assessed by the Mobile Conjugate Reinforcement Paradigm (mobile test) and the Visual Expectation Paradigm (VEP). The developmental status was assessed by a developmental test for children aged 6 months to 6 years (the ET 6-6) and by a language test for two years old children (the SETK-2). It was shown that the results of the mobile test at three months were associated with the language development when aged two years. The VEP at six months was also significantly related to the language development at two years of age, but additionally to the cognitive and social development when aged one year. The discussion of the results focuses on the necessity to pay attention to the appropriateness of the contingency detection paradigms for different age groups and on possible relationship between contingency detection and later development