Infant attention to audiovisual events and social competence predict childhood temperament

Individual differences in child temperament predict socioemotional skills, academic achievement, and psychopathology in middle to late childhood. However, early predictors of child temperament remain understudied. Here, we investigate the role of multisensory attention skills (sustained attention, intersensory matching, and shifting/disengaging) and social competence in infants and toddlers as early predictors of child temperament (effortful control, negative affect, and surgency). Although much of the research on social competence and temperament has focused on individual differences, until now, there were no individual difference measures appropriate for assessing attention to multisensory events. The Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol is a newly developed measure that assesses fine-grained individual differences in multisensory attention skills in preverbal infants and children. As part of a larger longitudinal study, 101 children received the Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol at 12 and 18 months (attention skills), the Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment at 18 months (social competence), and the Children's Behavior Questionnaire at 48 months (temperament). We found evidence that infant attention to both social and nonsocial events indirectly predicted childhood effortful control (a dimension of temperament) through social competence in toddlerhood. For social events, better sustained attention and slower disengaging of attention predicted social competence, which, in turn, predicted effortful control. For nonsocial events, better sustained attention predicted social competence, which, in turn, predicted effortful control. Findings highlight the importance of infant attention to audiovisual events for fostering social competence and temperament development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).