Multimodal sex-related differences in infant and in infant-directed maternal behaviors during months three through twelve of development.

Using the concepts of sensory and affective experience, this work relates the concepts of socialization and cognitive development to the embodiment of gender in the human infant. Evidence obtained from biweekly observations from 30 children and their mothers observed from age 3 months to age 12 months revealed measurable sex-related differences in how mothers handle and touch their infants. This work offers novel approaches to visualizing combinations of behaviors with the aim of encouraging researchers to think in terms of suites of action rather than singular sensory or motor systems. New avenues of research into the mechanisms which produce sex-related differences in behavior are suggested.