Developmental Order of Infants' Developmental Stages related to Picture Book Reading: Comparative Analysis on Years of 1996 and 2020

Abstract

In developmental psychology research, there is a specific order of infants' development, and infants show reactions in accordance with their developmental stages. Ishikawa and Maekawa (1996) focused on the relationship between the infants' developmental stages and the characteristics of picture books or the interaction induced by them. They showed that there is a specific order of infants' development in the picture book readings and daily lives. However, their study is based on the questionnaire survey of the year of 1996. Since 1996, there have been plenty of changes daily lives of infants and their relation to picture books. Based on this observation, we conducted another questionnaire survey in the year of 2020 that is almost the same as the one of the year of 1996. Then, we compare the results of analyzing the order of infants' development between the years of 1996 and 2020. It is shown that infants' development that is related to interest in picture books tends to be observed earlier in 2020 than in 1996. Infants' development that is related to picture book reading with infants' utterance, on the other hand, does not tend to be observed earlier.