The Impact of Malnutrition on Cambodian Infants' Social Learning and Relationship with Their Mother
| dc.contributor.author | Steeves, Carina Anelise | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-09-29T22:11:01Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-09-29T22:11:01Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2019 | |
| dc.description | 34 pages | |
| dc.description.abstract | Malnutrition in infants and children in early stages of life is a serious problem in third world countries around the globe. Undernutrition contributes to delays in cognitive development, language acquisition, and physical growth. The current research project focuses on the possibility that infant malnutrition, and in particular, thiamine deficiency, may negatively impact infants’ ability to respond to maternal efforts to engage with them socially. The focal point of my research involved validating a task -- the Primary Engagement Task (PET) -- designed to measure caregiver-infant positive mutual engagement. I observed 2-week-old infants’ responses in this task as mothers used multiple modalities to engage with infants; specifically, I coded how infants’ state changed over the course of the task. Of particular interest was the degree to which infant state changes corresponded to mothers’ use of additional tools to elicit positive engagement. I found that as mothers increased their deployment of visual, auditory, and tactile behaviors, infants progressively become more alert; similarly, infants’ state declined in alertness as maternal cues to engagement were progressively withdrawn. These findings provided initial validation for the PET as a technique that elicits systematic state changes in infants, thereby setting the stage for use of this measure to investigate individual differences -- such as differences in malnutrition history and thiamine status -- in infants’ responding on this task. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/25816 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.subject | Psychology | en_US |
| dc.subject | Human Development | en_US |
| dc.subject | Malnutrition | en_US |
| dc.subject | Infants | en_US |
| dc.subject | Cambodia | en_US |
| dc.subject | Social Learning | en_US |
| dc.subject | Human Development | en_US |
| dc.subject | Maternal Engagement | en_US |
| dc.title | The Impact of Malnutrition on Cambodian Infants' Social Learning and Relationship with Their Mother | |
| dc.type | Thesis/Dissertation |