Study Links 5-Year-Olds' Brain Skills to Mothers' Warmth During Infancy

A new analysis of data from a cognitive science laboratory at Virginia Tech adds more fuel to the idea that children’s ability to listen and follow directions in school is connected to the way caregivers responded to them as infants. Using data on babies’ brain development as well as their mothers’ interactions with them at five months old, the lab has found that maternal warmth is connected to a child’s “executive functioning” five years later.