Exploration in the Presence of Mother in Typically and Non-Typically Developing Pre-Walking Human Infants

Using an arsenal of conceptual, computational and statistical tools previously developed for the study of origin-related exploration in animals, we compared exploration of human pre-walking Typically-Developing (TD) and Non-Typically Developing (NTD) infants in the presence of mother. We found that while the TD infants exhibited a highly mother-centered organization involving excursions from mother and back to her, and deep engagement with mother when visiting her, the NTD infants tended to avoid mother9s place, performing few, if any excursions, and exhibiting shallow engagement with mother. Given the pervasiveness of origin-related exploration in invertebrates, vertebrates, and primates, it would now be a challenge to find an animal model that would exhibit active exploration while ignoring or suppressing the return to the origin, be it a mother or any other safe haven.