“…Parental social interactions with children include the visual, verbal and physical behaviours used in engaging children in interpersonal exchanges, like play, mutual visual regard and reciprocal vocalizing (e.g., Beckwith 1972, Bornstein & Tamis-LeMonda 1989, Fiese 1990, Hardy-Brown, Plomin & DeFries 1981, Junefelt 1990, Matas, Arend & Sroufe 1978, Slade 1987a, 1987b, Sorce & Emde 1981. Parental didactic interactions consist of strategies used in stimulating children to engage and understand their environment, like involving play with toys, encouraging joint attention to surroundings, and describing and demonstrating (e.g., Belsky, Goode & Most 1980, Bornstein 1985, Bradley, Caldwell & Elardo 1979, Carew 1980, Clarke-Stewart 1973, Olson, Bayles & Bates 1986, Smith et al 1988, Wachs & Chan 1986. By the beginning of the second year, toddlers understand and differentiate the animate and inanimate worlds (Frye 1981, Gelman & Spelke 1981, Golinkoff 1983, Piaget 1981, and research shows that parental interactions with infants and toddlers increasingly distinguish these social and didactic orientations (e.g., Belsky, Gilstrap & Rovine 1984, Bornstein & TamisLeMonda 1990, Brown 1977, Penman, Cross, Milgrom-Friedman & Meares 1983.…”