RUI: How childrearing practices shape infant development

Variations in childrearing practices create unique paths for how infants gain essential skills and learn about the world. This project focuses on a childrearing practice, in which families use a specialized cradle that guides how babies move, sleep, and grow throughout the first two years of life. This practice, which involves carefully wrapping and positioning babies in the cradle, offers a window into how these practices influence child development. By studying how babies develop within families that use the cradle, this project aims to uncover important insights about human development pathways. This project examines how the use of a specialized cradle impacts motor, social and communication development during the first two years of life. The study compares two groups of infants raised in nearby communities: those who experience high levels of movement restriction through high use of the cradle and those who experience less movement restriction through low use of the cradle. Following infants from 4 to 16 months of age, researchers measure motor skill development (sitting, crawling, and walking), cognitive abilities (attention, problem-solving, and learning), and social-emotional communication (vocalizations, gestures). Using a combination of common developmental tests, natural observations of daily family activities, and detailed time logs, researchers examine how different amounts of movement restriction affect these aspects of development. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.