Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Mother and child
- Creators: Crnic, Keith A
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
The nature and correlates of emerging internalizing symptoms in young children are largely unknown. Maternal factors such as psychological symptoms and detached parenting style have been found to be present in children with anxiety and depression. Further, child attentional control in task completion has been associated with difficulty related to internalizing problems. This study tested hypotheses that child anxiety and depression at age five could be predicted by a combination of maternal distress and maternal detached behavior recorded at age three. An additional hypothesis was tested to determine if child attentional control at age four may be a partial mediator of the relation between maternal symptoms and parenting to child internalizing symptoms. Using structural equation modeling, no hypotheses were supported; child internalizing problems were not significantly predicted by maternal distress nor detached parenting. Further, child attentional control was not predicted by maternal distress or detached behavior, nor did attentional control predict internalizing problems. Findings indicate that over a two-year interval, childhood internalizing problems at age five are likely best predicted by early internalizing problems at age three. There was no support that the mother or child factors tested were predictive of child outcomes.
ContributorsSkelley, Shayna (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Committee member) / MacKinnon, David (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
Guided by Belsky's Determinants of Parenting Process Model, the goal of the present study was to examine how mothers' personality (i.e., Conscientiousness) and behaviors (i.e., sensitivity, structure, and negative control) relate to children's developmental outcomes, such as internalization (i.e., committed compliance and effortful control) and academic adaptation. A multi-method, longitudinal model included five waves of data to examine the processes of the relations among variables. Mothers' Conscientiousness was measured via self-reported data when children were 18 months of age (N = 256), mothers' parenting behaviors were measured through observational laboratory tasks when children were 30 months (N = 230), children's internalization was measured using mothers' and caregivers' reports as well as observational data at 42 months (N = 210), and children's school adaptation was measured when children were 72 and 84 months (Ns = 169 and 144) using mothers' and teachers' reports. Through a series of regression analyses, the results supported the mediated effect of effortful control in the relation between mothers' behaviors and children's school adaptation. As hypothesized, mothers' Conscientiousness marginally predicted children's internalization. Contrary to hypotheses, mothers' Conscientiousness was unrelated to parenting behaviors and children's academic adaptation. Mothers' sensitivity interacted with maternal structure to predict children's effortful control. Socioeconomic status and child sex interacted with mothers' behaviors in predicting the child's committed compliance. The discussion focuses on the unique role of parenting practices and personality on children's internalization and academic adaptation and on the existing literature. Implications of the study for clinicians and intervention researchers are offered.
ContributorsKopystynska, Olena (Author) / Spinrad, Tracy L. (Thesis advisor) / Eisenberg, Nancy (Committee member) / Valiente, Carlos (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The parent-child relationship is one of the earliest and most formative experiences for social and emotional development. Synchrony, defined as the rhythmic patterning and quality of mutual affect, engagement, and physiological attunement, has been identified as a critical quality of a healthy mother-infant relationship. Although the salience of the quality of family interaction has been well-established, clinical and developmental research has varied widely in methods for observing and identifying influential aspects of synchrony. In addition, modern dynamic perspectives presume multiple factors converge in a complex system influenced by both nature and nurture, in which individual traits, behavior, and environment are inextricably intertwined within the system of dyadic relational units.
The present study aimed to directly examine and compare synchrony from three distinct approaches: observed microanalytic behavioral sequences, observed global dyadic qualities, and physiological attunement between mothers and infants. The sample consisted of 323 Mexican American mothers and their infants followed from the third trimester of pregnancy through the first year of life. Mothers were interviewed prenatally, observed at a home visit at 12 weeks postpartum, and were finally interviewed for child social-emotional problems at child age 12 months. Specific aspects of synchrony (microanalytical, global, and physiological) were examined separately as well as together to identify comparable and divergent qualities within the construct.
Findings indicated that multiple perspectives on synchrony are best examined together, but as independent qualities to account for varying characteristics captured by divergent systems. Dyadic relationships characterized by higher reciprocity, more time and flexibility in mutual non-negative engagement, and less tendency to enter negative or unengaged states were associated with fewer child social-emotional problems at child age 12 months. Lower infant cortisol was associated with higher levels of externalizing problems, and smaller differences between mother and child cortisol were associated with higher levels of child dysregulation. Results underscore the complex but important nature of synchrony as a salient mechanism underlying the social-emotional growth of children. A mutually engaged, non-negative, and reciprocal environment lays the foundation for the successful social and self-regulatory competence of infants in the first year of life.
The present study aimed to directly examine and compare synchrony from three distinct approaches: observed microanalytic behavioral sequences, observed global dyadic qualities, and physiological attunement between mothers and infants. The sample consisted of 323 Mexican American mothers and their infants followed from the third trimester of pregnancy through the first year of life. Mothers were interviewed prenatally, observed at a home visit at 12 weeks postpartum, and were finally interviewed for child social-emotional problems at child age 12 months. Specific aspects of synchrony (microanalytical, global, and physiological) were examined separately as well as together to identify comparable and divergent qualities within the construct.
Findings indicated that multiple perspectives on synchrony are best examined together, but as independent qualities to account for varying characteristics captured by divergent systems. Dyadic relationships characterized by higher reciprocity, more time and flexibility in mutual non-negative engagement, and less tendency to enter negative or unengaged states were associated with fewer child social-emotional problems at child age 12 months. Lower infant cortisol was associated with higher levels of externalizing problems, and smaller differences between mother and child cortisol were associated with higher levels of child dysregulation. Results underscore the complex but important nature of synchrony as a salient mechanism underlying the social-emotional growth of children. A mutually engaged, non-negative, and reciprocal environment lays the foundation for the successful social and self-regulatory competence of infants in the first year of life.
ContributorsCoburn, Shayna Skelley (Author) / Crnic, Keith A (Thesis advisor) / Dishion, Thomas J (Committee member) / Mackinnon, David P (Committee member) / Luecken, Linda J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015