Antecedents of Exploratory Competence at One Year

The start of the 2nd year is a period of transition and substantial variability among toddlers in ploy and attention abilities. This longitudinal study exomined the ontecedents of voriotion among 13-month-old toddlers in these exploratory competencies in the infonts’ own informotion-processing obilities at 5 months (indexed by visuol fixotion in the loboroton/), the infonts’ vocal and exploratory activities at 5 months (measured during naturalistic observotion in the home), mothers’ stimulotion of infants ot 5 months, and mothers’ IQ. Infant visuol fixotion ond maternal IQ predicted toddler symbolic play; furthermore, infant visuol fixation, infant activity, and moternal IQ predicted toddler attention span. In contrast, mothers’ early stimulation did not predict play or attention in toddlers. Structural equation modeling was used to assess prediction of the three significant antecedents (infant visuol fixotion, infant activity, ond maternol IQ) to toddlers’ exploratory competence, o latent varioble representing the shored variance between ploy and attention. Together, the three predictors accounted for 50% of the variance in toddler exploratory competence. These dato broaden the scope of infont ond mother prediction beyond toddler verbal-representational abilities to encompass domains of toddler exploration.