Table 1 displays a comparison of scores on the EMQ between T.I., C.I., and the overall sample mean. T.I.'s gross motor score was similar to both C.I.'s score and the sample mean at the 3-month visit but substantially lower by the 24-month visit. Most notably, T.I.'s 3 month fine motor score (0) was more than 3 standard deviations below the sample mean (M = 0.67, SD = 0.20). A score of 0 indicates that the infant has not yet demonstrated any of the fine motor behaviors listed on the questionnaire. Examples of fine motor behaviors that other 3-month-old infants demonstrated were: "opens the fingers of each hand spontaneously," "brings hands together near the face, chest, or tummy," and "tightly holds onto a toy placed into his/her hand". T.I.'s mother verbally noted at the 2.5-month visit that T.I. liked to tuck his thumb into the palm of his hand. The experimenter noted on a study documentation form that she had trouble opening T.I.'s fingers to place a rattle in his hand.
Results from video coding (quantitative analyses) revealed that T.I. spent less time manually engaging with presented objects than C.I. at the first three visits (see Figure 2).
At the 8.5-month visit, T.I. engaged in more rhythmic play than C.I. (e.g., repeatedly sliding the activity ball across the table; see Figure 3C). T.I.'s mother noted during the filmed session that T.I. liked to slide his hands and toys across the table at home. In contrast, the second author noted that C.I. spent more time manipulating the individual components of the activity ball (see Figure 3D).
At 2.5 and 3 months, T.I. demonstrated a longer latency to visually attend to presented objects compared to C.I., as measured by the number of seconds that passed between the presentation of an object and the onset of the first "look" code. When the experimenter attempted to direct T.I.'s attention to an object, T.I. often took up to 10 s to visually orient. C.I. did not demonstrate this same behavior and tended to orient quickly to new objects (Figure 3B). The second author noted that T.I. displayed a strong preference for looking down at his hands and at the table's surface (Figure 3A). Compared to C.I., T.I. rarely shifted his attention-looking at his hands, the toy, and the table surface continuously for up to 60 s. At the 8.5-month visit, T.I. no longer looked at his hands, but similarly maintained visual attention to presented objects for periods of up to 60 s. In contrast, C.I. frequently shifted his attention between the toy, his mother, and the experimenter.
At the 8.5-month visit, the experimenter stacked a set of 5 blocks to build a tower and asked the infant to imitate this behavior. Neither infant successfully stacked any blocks. As with the activity ball, T.I. slid the blocks back and forth across the table. The same blocks task was repeated at the 24-month visit. Both C.I. and T.I. successfully built a block tower. C.I. proceeded to knock down the tower, just as the experimenter had demonstrated. In contrast, T.I. accomplished the same goal by removing each block from the tower one at a time to create a straight line of blocks on the table.
A second imitation task at the 24-month visit involved inserting a metal spoon into the side of a lightbox to activate a display of lights. C.I. inserted the spoon into a hole in the side of the lightbox, just as the experimenter demonstrated (see Figure 3F). In contrast, T.I. explored the box itself and discovered that the top of the box could be removed to reveal the lights inside (see Figure 3E). No other child in the study noticed the removable top, which was designed to be discreet (i.e., all painted the same color). T.I. then used his finger, instead of the tool, to activate the light, a solution that was not modeled by the experimenter.