Association of Social Referencing with Developmental Scores of Preschool Children

U.Dhingra², P. Verma¹, P. Dhingra¹, A. Sarkar¹, M. Osmany¹, R. Juyall¹, R.E. Black², V.P Menon¹, J. Kumar¹, A. Dutta², G.S. Hiremath², B. Lozoff³, M. Black⁴ and S. Sazawal^1,2

¹Center for Micronutrient Research, Annamalai University, India
²Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
³ Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan, MI, USA
⁴Department of Pediatrics, University of Maryland, MD, USA

Although theoretical and empirical data support that social interaction and social referencing are essential for normal child development but objective evidence is lacking. We used novel computer based observations to investigate the social referencing skills of the children. Social referencing assessments were undertaken using The Observer^® 5.0 (Noldus InformationTechnology bv, The Netherlands) an automated manual event recorder installed in a laptop. Behavioral observations for 11 minutes among 1240 preschool children, in a playroom clinic setting were conducted. Familiarization toys for first 5 minutes and 3 different ambiguous stimulus toys for 2 minutes each were given to the child for exploration. Social referencing skills of the child and parent child behavior, in terms of Contact with Caregiver, Proximity to Mother; Mother’s Affect; Child’s Affect; Latency to first touch to Distractor/ Stimulus toy; Contact with Toy and Distance to Stimulus toy were coded during the observation session. On the same day, developmental assessments of these children were conducted using Bayley’s Scales of Infant Development- II and the outcomes being measured as psychomotor developmental index (PDI) and mental developmental index (MDI). In order to examine the association of social referencing skills with the mental and motor development, regression model with five independent variables (child look, show, bid, offer or verbalize with mother), child verbalizing mother about the toy was significantly associated with MDI (ß=0.69, p<0.001) as well as PDI (ß=0.66, p<0.001). This association was independently significant even when covariates (durations of child smile, mother talking, no contact with the toy and proximity to the mother) were entered in a multiple regression model. Similarly, for PDI, child verbalizing mother was independently associated even when covariates (durations of mom talk, wariness, no contact with toy, smile, and away from mother), had a significant association with the PDI outcome. Our results suggest that among the social referencing skills only child looking and verbalizing mother have an independent association with the overall mental and motor developmental outcomes indicating that social and emotional behavior is a component of overall development.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

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