How infant and mother jointly contribute to developing cognitive competence in the child

Infants who processed visual information more efficiently and had mothers who more frequently encouraged them to attend to properties, objects, and events in the home environment in the first 6 months of life excelled in verbal development during their second year and scored higher on a conventional psychometric assessment of intelligence at 4 years. These results, confirmed over several studies, support the idea of continuity in mental development from infancy and begin to specify parental didactic activities that may most efficaciously promote cognitive achievement in young children of different ages.