Changing Opportunities for Learning in Everyday Life: Infant Body Position Over the First Year

Developmental theories depend on characterizing the input to potential learning mechanisms-infants' everyday experiences. The current study employed a novel ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to measure two aspects of the physical context of those experiences: body position and location. Infant body position was selected because it relates to the development of a variety of other skills. Caregivers of 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month-olds reported infants' body position-held, supine, reclined, prone, sitting, or upright-in response to text message notifications over a week to capture infants' experiences across the entire range of their daily activities. Findings revealed a tremendous disparity in the distribution of body position experiences over the first year. Younger infants spend more time held, supine, and reclined, whereas older infants spend more time sitting and upright. Body position experiences differed substantially between same-age infants who possess a motor skill (e.g., ability to sit or walk) compared with those who did not, suggesting that developing motor skills change infants' everyday experiences. Finally, the success of the methodology suggests that similar EMAs might be used to study a wide range of infants' naturalistic experiences.