Cardiac activity in infancy: Reliability and stability of individual differences

doi:10.1016/0163-6383(94)90006-X

Infant Behavior and Development

Volume 17, Issue 3, July–September 1994, Pages 277-284

https://doi.org/10.1016/0163-6383(94)90006-X Get rights and content

Abstract

The goals of this study were to examine: (a) normative developmental changes in heart period and cardiac vagal tone: and (b) the reliability and stability over time of individual differences in the two measures. When the 73 infants participating in this short-term longitudinal study were 5, 7, 10, and 13 months old, a 5-min sample of cardiac activity was collected while the infants sat on thier mothers' laps in a quiet, attentive state. A second 5-min sample of cardiac activity was also collected at 7, 10, and 13 months followin a 20-min long battery of emotion-eliciting stimuli. Significant developmental increases were observed in heart period but not in the measure of cardiac vagal tone. Stress-related decreases in cardiac vagal tone and increases in heart rate were observed after the emotion-eliciting stimuli ended. Individual differences in measures of heart period and cardiac vagal tone were stable over 2- and 3-month periods.

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Table 1 reports the sample composition for each study included in the review, as well as the mean and standard deviation for RSA at every age for which it was measured in each study. Values of RSA assessed at multiple ages within the same study were modestly to moderately intercorrelated not only within infancy (Fracasso et al., 1994: r = [.50, .60]; Izard et al., 1991: r = [.36, .49]; Porter et al., 1995: r = .39; Stifter and Jain, 1996: r = .30), but also between infancy and toddlerhood (Porges et al., 1994: r = .55), and between infancy and preschool (Bornstein and Suess, 2000: r = [.30,.55]). Studies with measures spanning early childhood reported consistent results: Bar-Haim et al. (2000) reported that among 10 correlations among measures of basal vagal tone taken at 4, 9, 14, 24, and 48 months, all but two were significant (r = [.36, .55]); Patriquin et al. (2013) reported the same proportion of significant correlations among measures at 5, 10, 24, 36, 48 months (r = [.27, .67]).
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^☆: This research has been supported, in part, by grant HD 22628 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Services to S.W.P.

^∗: The authors are grateful to Evan Byrne, Denise Haynie, Kathleen M. Miritello, and Laura Scaramella for assistance in the collecton and quantification of the data.

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Cardiac activity in infancy: Reliability and stability of individual differences☆

Abstract

Infant Behavior and Development

Infant Behavior and Development

Infant Bahavior and Development

The properties of the V̂in newborns across repeated measures

Developmental Psychology

Bayley scales of infant development

Sustained visual attention measured with an adapted version of the visual preference paradigm

Child Development

Reactivity of preterms to gavage feeding

Infant Behavior and Development

Psychophysiological correlates of emotional reactivity during the first year of life

Development Psychology

The relation between neonatal heart period patterns and developmental outcome

Child Development

Respiration, stress, and cardiovascular function

Psychophysiology

Effects of feeding on state and cardiac regulation in the infant

Development Psychobiology

Polygraphic studies of normal infants during the first six months of life. I

Development patterns of heart rate and heart rate variability during sleep and waking in normal infants and infants at risk for the sudden infant death syndrome

Sleep

Development of sinus arrhythmia during sleeping and walking states in normal infants

Sleep

Temporal distribution of sleep states, somatic activity, and autonomic activity during the first half year of life

Sleep