Studies in the USA rarely find differences in the social-vocal behaviors of male versus female infants, and when such differences are found, they favor females. The present study examined whether this pattern would hold true in Greece, where the parental preference for boys over girls could differentially affect rearing behavior. The subjects were normal 3-month-old infants, 39 reared by their parents and 25 reared in an institution. Infants' vocal interaction pattern was assessed by Roe's Differential Vocal Responsiveness (DVR) to mother/caretaker versus a stranger during 3-min social-vocal interactions. This technique has previously been found to relate to later cognitive development. The results showed that home-reared males had higher DVR scores than home-reared females, whereas no such sex difference was obtained for the institution infants. Also, the affective voice quality rating of mothers talking to their sons was higher than that of mothers talking to their daughters, whereas no such difference existed in the way caretakers talked to the institution infants. The results suggest that early differences in vocal-interactional patterns, and possibly cognitive processing, may be attributable to differences in parental behavior.
The performance on the Illingworth of 32 3-mo.-old home-reared Greek infants was compared to that of 22 infants reared in a modern institution. Home-reared infants were superior to institutional infants in every aspect of development except on Manipulations (fine motor coordination). It is speculated that the superiority of the home infants is attributed to the quality of the mother/caretaker-infant relationship.
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