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An attentional bias toward infant versus adult faces has been detected in parents and positively associated with sensitive caregiving behaviors. In previous research, the attentional bias has been measured as the difference in attention, in terms of reaction times, captured by infant versus adult faces; the larger the difference, the greater the cognitive engagement that adults deployed to infant faces. However, research so far has been mostly confined to samples of mothers, who have been more represented than fathers. Moreover, new family forms, especially same-sex families of men, have been left out of research. To clarify potential sex differences and extend previous findings to diverse family forms, we implemented a modified Go/no-Go attentional task measuring attentional bias to infant faces in parents with children aged from 2 to 36 months. The sample (N = 86) was matched and included 22 fathers and 22 mothers from different-sex families and 20 fathers and 22 mothers from same-sex families. Overall, the results confirmed that infant faces induced a greater attentional bias compared to adult faces. Moreover, we found that neither the type of family nor parents' sex modulated the attentional bias toward infant faces. The findings are discussed in relation to the importance of understanding the correlates of parental response to infant cues going beyond a heteronormative perspective on parenting.
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Viés de Atenção , Humanos , Masculino , Feminino , Lactente , Adulto , Pais/psicologia , Atenção , Pré-Escolar , Tempo de Reação , Fatores Sexuais , Face , Reconhecimento FacialRESUMO
Evidence of psychological distress in families during COVID-19 outbreak are arising. However, the perceived changes in psychological adjustment during home confinement with respect to the period before the pandemic have not been addressed yet. Moreover, little is known about the role of coparenting and specific COVID-19 contextual variables on parental stress and children's behavioral difficulties in the Italian context. Using a cross-sectional survey, we collected data on 841 Italian parents of children aged 3-11 years with typical development during the home confinement (20th April-18th May). We analyzed levels of parental stress, coparenting, and child externalizing behaviors before and during the home confinement. Additionally, hierarchical regressions were performed to investigate predictors of parental stress and child externalizing behaviors during the lockdown. Results showed that parental stress (especially in mothers) and child externalizing behaviors increased during the lockdown period. Coparenting was a strong predictor of parental stress, together with being a mother, younger child age, less time dedicated to the child, and scarce feasibility of remote working. Besides, child externalizing behaviors were predicted by male gender, less parental time dedicated to the child, higher parental stress, and child distance learning workload. Our findings indicate a negative impact of COVID-19 lockdown in both parents and children, suggesting that positive coparenting and time dedicated to children may help to reduce the detrimental effect of pandemic restrictions on family adjustment.
Están surgiendo datos sobre el distrés psicológico en las familias durante el brote de la COVID-19. Sin embargo, aún no se han abordado los cambios percibidos en la adaptación psicológica durante el confinamiento. Este estudio tuvo como finalidad investigar los cambios en los niveles de estrés de los padres, las dificultades conductuales de los niños y la cocrianza antes y durante el confinamiento en el hogar. Además, analizamos los factores pronósticos de estrés por la crianza y las conductas de exteriorización de los niños durante el confinamiento. Utilizando una encuesta representativa, recogimos datos sobre 841 padres italianos durante el confinamiento en el hogar (desde el 20 de abril hasta el 18 de mayo). Analizamos los niveles de estrés de los padres, la cocrianza y las conductas de exteriorización de los niños antes y durante el confinamiento. Se realizaron regresiones jerárquicas para investigar los factores pronósticos de estrés de los padres y las conductas de exteriorización de los niños durante el confinamiento. El estrés de los padres (especialmente de las madres) y las conductas de exteriorización de los niños aumentaron durante el periodo de confinamiento. La cocrianza se mantuvo estable y fue un factor pronóstico fuerte del estrés de los padres, junto con ser madre, niños más pequeños, menos tiempo dedicado al niño y escasa viabilidad de trabajar virtualmente. Las conductas de exteriorización de los niños fueron pronosticadas por el género masculino, menos tiempo de los padres dedicado al niño, un mayor estrés de los padres y la cantidad de actividades de la enseñanza a distancia del niño. Nuestros resultados indican un efecto negativo del confinamiento por la COVID-19 tanto en los padres como en los niños e indican que la cocrianza positiva y el tiempo dedicado a los niños pueden contribuir a reducir el efecto perjudicial de las restricciones de la pandemia en la adaptación familiar.
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COVID-19 , COVID-19/prevenção & controle , Criança , Comportamento Infantil , Controle de Doenças Transmissíveis , Estudos Transversais , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Poder Familiar , Pais/psicologia , SARS-CoV-2 , Inquéritos e QuestionáriosRESUMO
The impact of different parenting-related variables on child psychological development is widely acknowledged. However, studies about the specific influence of maternal and family dimensions on child early developmental outcomes in at-risk dyads are still scarce. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the short- and middle-term effects of prenatal and postnatal family and maternal features, and child attachment, on child psychological development at 3 and 24 months in at-risk families. Forty-two mothers with psychological, social and/or demographic risk conditions and their first-born infants were assessed longitudinally. Measurements of maternal personality, psychological and depressive symptoms, family socioeconomic status (SES), child-mother attachment, and infant general psychological development were collected at multiple time points, through validated questionnaires and/or mother-child observation. Maternal and family dimensions showed a significant effect on child psychological development over time. The expected detrimental role of reported maternal depressive symptoms was observed both at 3 and 24 months of child's age. Data also highlighted the negative contribution of low family SES and an unexpected positive influence of maternal personality trait of psychoticism on child psychological development at 24 months. We also found a positive association between attachment security and child developmental outcome. These findings might have relevant implications for the implementation of early prevention programs by differentiating the specific predictive role of maternal child and familial factors on child psychological development in at-risk families.
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Desenvolvimento Infantil/fisiologia , Família/psicologia , Relações Mãe-Filho/psicologia , Mães/psicologia , Apego ao Objeto , Poder Familiar/psicologia , Adaptação Psicológica , Adulto , Pré-Escolar , Feminino , Previsões , Humanos , Lactente , Itália , Estudos Longitudinais , Masculino , Gravidez , Fatores de Risco , Fatores Socioeconômicos , Estresse PsicológicoRESUMO
This study (a) investigates effects of the transition to motherhood on implicit and explicit responses to infant cues; (b) assesses influences of prior parenting and delivery experiences on implicit and explicit responses to infant cues; and (c) investigates relations between implicit and explicit responses to infant cues and parenting beliefs. A total of 45 pregnant women were followed from the sixth month of pregnancy to the third month after the childbirth and were administered a Single Category Implicit Association Test, a semantic differential scale, the Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection scale, and the Parental Style Questionnaire. The transition to motherhood influenced explicit not implicit responses; only implicit responses were shaped by prior parenting experiences and mode of delivery; and parenting beliefs were related in independent and different ways to implicit and explicit evaluations. These findings indicate that implicit responses are valid and meaningful indices of maternal responsiveness to infants.
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Conhecimentos, Atitudes e Prática em Saúde , Comportamento Materno/fisiologia , Relações Mãe-Filho , Adulto , Sinais (Psicologia) , Feminino , Humanos , Lactente , Masculino , Gravidez , Testes de Associação de Palavras , Adulto JovemRESUMO
BACKGROUND: The quality of early experiences with caregivers affects individual adjustment and can modulate adults' responses to salient social stimuli, like infant faces. However, in the framework of Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Theory (IPARTheory), no research to date has examined whether early experiences of acceptance or rejection from caregivers are associated with individual differences in the electrophysiological (EEG) responses to infant faces. OBJECTIVE: This study examined the associations between the perceived quality of care during childhood and the behavioral and EEG responses to infant and adult faces in non-parent young adults. METHODS: N = 60 non-parent young adults (30 males; 30 females) completed an Emotion Recognition task displaying emotional and unemotional infant and adult faces during an EEG recording. Memories of past care experiences with mothers and fathers were collected using the short form version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection scale. RESULTS: At the behavioral level, slower Reaction Times (RTs) in recognizing all faces were related to higher levels of perceived maternal rejection in young adults; in particular, males who reported higher levels of maternal rejection displayed longer RTs in recognizing faces compared to females. At the neurophysiological level, as the level of perceived paternal rejection increased, the N170 amplitude to infant faces increased. Females who reported higher levels of paternal rejection, compared to males, had a larger increase in the N170 amplitude and a larger decrease in the LPP amplitude in response to emotional faces. CONCLUSIONS: While a higher perception of maternal rejection hindered the behavioral responses of adults in recognizing faces, those who felt more rejected by their own father during childhood showed an enhanced N170 amplitude to infant faces. This might reflect a greater need for discrimination resources, at a very early stage of infant face processing, in those adults who perceived higher levels of paternal rejection. Adults' sex modulated the associations found at the behavioral and neurophysiological levels. Overall, our findings extended the IPARTheory postulates that being neglected during childhood might trigger perceptual changes in adults, hindering the elaboration of social cues like infant and adult faces at different levels.
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Cuidadores , Eletroencefalografia , Humanos , Masculino , Feminino , Adulto Jovem , Cuidadores/psicologia , Adulto , Lactente , Reconhecimento Facial/fisiologia , Expressão Facial , Tempo de Reação , Emoções , AdolescenteRESUMO
While research has shown that the attentional bias to infant faces predicts the quality of infant care, the antecedents of this cognitive process have been less established. In particular, it remains unknown whether the attentional bias to infant faces might be affected by the interplay between different factors, including memories of past experiences of care, adults' sex, and the experience of parenthood. To extend previous results, we examined the attentional bias to infant faces in a mixed sample of parents (n = 99) and nonparents (n = 102), and whether it varied in relation to parental status, sex, the quality of past experiences of care, and the interactions between these factors. A modified go/no-go task was used to compare the effect of adult and infant faces in retaining adults' attention. Memories of past experiences of paternal and maternal care were collected using the short form of the Italian version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection scale. Results confirmed that infant faces induced greater attentional interference compared to adult faces. A heightened attention to all types of faces was found in parents versus nonparent. Women, as compared to men, were slower in the task performance, and allocated more attention to infant versus adult faces. Consistent with previous evidence, the attentional prioritization of infant faces varied in relation to previous experiences of care with one's own mother; individuals who remembered a more accepting maternal care allocated more attention to infant versus adult faces. Parental status did not modulate this effect, but sex of participants did. Grounded in the interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory), this study provides new insights for discerning processes that might regulate global adult caregiving. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).
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Viés de Atenção , Pais , Humanos , Feminino , Masculino , Adulto , Viés de Atenção/fisiologia , Pais/psicologia , Lactente , Reconhecimento Facial/fisiologia , Adulto Jovem , Pessoa de Meia-IdadeRESUMO
Mothers and fathers of autistic children (ASD) tend to report elevated levels of parenting stress. Thus, it is critically important to understand which factors contribute to an imbalance between the perceived demands of parenting and the available psychological resources. To date, little is known about the association between child attachment representations and parenting stress. In this study, we first examined group differences in parenting stress levels based on child diagnosis and parents' gender. Second, we explored the predictive role of child diagnosis, autism severity, and child attachment representations on parenting stress. The study involved 23 school-age children with ASD (IQ > 70), 27 without ASD (7-13 years), and their mothers (n = 50) and fathers (n = 50). Data were collected from 2017 to 2020. Parents completed the Social Responsiveness Scale 2 and the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form, while the children's attachment representations were assessed using the School-age Assessment of Attachment. Parents of children with ASD reported higher stress compared with controls. No differences were found between mothers and fathers. Implicit attachment representations have been found to be associated with parenting stress only in mothers, while the severity of social impairment showed a significant effect on parenting stress in both parents. These findings revealed the potential benefit of adaptive attachment representations not only for children themselves but also for mothers and the family system, suggesting the bidirectional nature of parent-child relationships in the context of ASD. The uniqueness of maternal and paternal parenting experiences should be considered when parenting stress is addressed.
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Introduction: Verbal language is one of the most immediate and significant means parents have to express affect and information to their children. Parental speech directed to children has been thoroughly examined in typical development. However, the characteristics of parental speech directed to children with neurodevelopmental disorders are far less well documented, and no recent studies have been carried out that involve autistic1 children and their fathers. Therefore, the present study aims to analyze and compare maternal and paternal speech directed to young autistic children, focusing on fathers' elements of speech in comparison with maternal language. Methods: N = 88 dyads participated in this study. 44 autistic children (41 males and 3 females) (chronological age: M = 40.01 months; SD = 11.96) in interaction with their fathers (paternal age M = 41.84 years; SD = 7.02) and the same 44 children in interaction with their mothers (maternal age M = 37.37 years; SD = 5.45). The language was verbatim transcribed using ELAN software (ELAN Version 6.4, 2022) and coded with an observational tool (Penman) for analyzing functions and referents of speech after reaching a satisfactory level of agreement between two independent transcribers. Results: No differences emerged considering the affective aspects of speech. However, mothers seem to direct more informative salient statements (W = 1,259; p = 0.02) and call the child's attention more often than fathers (W = 1,253.5; p = 0.02). Regarding referents of informative speech, fathers focused more on the child's internal states rather than mothers (W = 727; p = 0.04). Discussion: These results reveal that fathers seem to display a relationship-based approach focused on a non-intrusive style with few demands while talking with their children, providing a complementary role to mothers that allows complete and harmonious stimulation of all areas of child development.
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Despite intersubject variability, dramatic impairments of socio-communicative skills are core features of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). A deficit in the ability to express and understand emotions has often been hypothesized to be an important correlate of such impairments. Little is known about individuals with ASD's ability to sense emotions conveyed by nonsocial stimuli such as music. Music has been found to be capable of evoking and conveying strong and consistent positive and negative emotions in healthy subjects. The ability to process perceptual and emotional aspects of music seems to be maintained in ASD. Individuals with ASD and neurotypical (NT) controls underwent a single functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session while processing happy and sad music excerpts. Overall, fMRI results indicated that while listening to both happy and sad music, individuals with ASD activated cortical and subcortical brain regions known to be involved in emotion processing and reward. A comparison of ASD participants with NT individuals demonstrated decreased brain activity in the premotor area and in the left anterior insula, especially in response to happy music excerpts. Our findings shed new light on the neurobiological correlates of preserved and altered emotional processing in ASD.
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Percepção Auditiva/fisiologia , Mapeamento Encefálico , Encéfalo/fisiopatologia , Transtornos Globais do Desenvolvimento Infantil/fisiopatologia , Emoções/fisiologia , Música/psicologia , Adulto , Criança , Transtornos Globais do Desenvolvimento Infantil/psicologia , Feminino , Humanos , Imageamento por Ressonância Magnética , Masculino , Vias Neurais/fisiologia , Adulto JovemRESUMO
OBJECTIVE: We initiated a prospective study of very young children with cancer, in comparison with matched healthy children, to investigate neurodevelopmental consequences of non-CNS cancers and treatment. METHODS: A total of 61 children (≤42 months) with non-CNS cancers and 61 matched controls underwent an identical age-appropriate neuropsychological test battery. RESULTS: Children with cancer manifested deficits compared to healthy controls in motor, mental, and language development, but were similar to controls in cognitive representational abilities and emotional relationships in interaction with their mothers. Better physician-rated health status at diagnosis and mother-rated behavioral status 1 month prior to assessment were associated with better motor and mental performance in the cancer group. CONCLUSIONS: This study identifies deficits as well as spared functions in children with non-CNS cancers; the results suggest ways parents and healthcare professionals may plan specific remediations to enhance quality of life in young cancer survivors.
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Neoplasias do Sistema Nervoso Central , Desenvolvimento Infantil/fisiologia , Neoplasias/psicologia , Adulto , Neoplasias do Sistema Nervoso Central/complicações , Neoplasias do Sistema Nervoso Central/psicologia , Pré-Escolar , Transtornos Cognitivos/diagnóstico , Transtornos Cognitivos/etiologia , Feminino , Humanos , Lactente , Avaliação de Estado de Karnofsky , Desenvolvimento da Linguagem , Masculino , Mães/psicologia , Neoplasias/complicações , Testes Neuropsicológicos , Estudos ProspectivosRESUMO
This study uses country and regional contrasts to examine culture-common and community-specific variation in mother-infant emotional relationships. Altogether, 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. American mothers and their daughters and sons, living in rural and metropolitan settings, were observed at home at infant age 5 months. Both variable- and person-centered perspectives of dyadic emotional relationships were analyzed. Supporting the notion that adequate emotional relationships are a critical and culture-common characteristic of human infant development, across all samples most dyads scored in the adaptive range in terms of emotional relationships. Giving evidence of community-specific characteristics, Italian mothers were more sensitive, and Italian infants more responsive, than Argentine and U.S. mothers and infants; in addition, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and rural dyads more likely than expected to be classified as mid-range in emotional relationships and less likely to be classified as high in emotional relationships. Adaptive emotional relationships appear to be a culture-common characteristic of mother-infant dyads near the beginning of life, but this relational construct is moderated by community-specific (country and regional) context.
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The few studies available on quality of attachment in school-age children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exclusively used questionnaires assessing explicit attachment representations. Thus, in the current study we assessed both explicit and implicit attachment representations in 23 children with ASD (without intellectual disability), 22 with learning disabilities and 27 with typical development aged from 7 to 13 years. A self-reported measure on the quality of attachment to parents and a semi-structured interview were administered to the children. In addition, a developmental assessment of the child including measures of intelligence and social-communication impairment was conducted. Despite the lack of group differences on explicit attachment representations, we found that children with ASD showed higher rates of at-risk self-protective strategies and psychological trauma compared to the TD group. Children with SLD also showed a high level of at-risk implicit attachment representations than TD, albeit to a lesser extent compared to children with ASD. These results may be related to several factors associated with ASD impairment and developmental pathways, such as the atypical learning process which occur at interpersonal level, the difficulties in social information processing and reflective functioning. Our findings suggested that children with ASD may experience difficulties in the construction of balanced implicit attachment representations. Thus, a more comprehensive assessment of attachment including both implicit and explicit representations is recommended.
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Transtorno do Espectro Autista , Deficiência Intelectual , Transtorno do Espectro Autista/psicologia , Criança , Humanos , Inteligência , Aprendizagem , PaisRESUMO
Infant faces are prioritized by the attentional system in parents, resulting in a greater cognitive engagement in terms of response time. However, many biological, contextual and environmental factors relating to this cognitive mechanism have been left unexplored. To fill this gap, this study aims to (i) confirm that infant faces engage more attention compared to adult faces; (ii) investigate whether the attention to infant faces is affected early care experiences of parents; (iii) explore the effect of parents' sex by taking the amount of involvement with early childcare into consideration. 51 mothers and 46 fathers completed a modified Go/no-Go task, a brief sociodemographic questionnaire, the short version of the Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection scale, and an ad-hoc question relating to the amount of parental involvement with early childcare. Parents' response times were slowed in the presence of infant versus adult faces. Parents whose mother was perceived as more sensitively accepting were more engaged by infant cues. By considering the amount of early parental involvement, the sex of parents did not significantly interact with the type of face. These findings provide new insights on the attention process in response to infant cues in parents and suggest that the investigation of experience-based factors may shed further light on this topic.
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Cuidado da Criança , Mães , Feminino , Adulto , Criança , Humanos , Lactente , Masculino , Mães/psicologia , Inquéritos e Questionários , Sinais (Psicologia) , Tempo de Reação , Poder Familiar/psicologia , Pai/psicologiaRESUMO
As fathering research has flourished, a growing body of studies has focused on behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms, respectively associated with caregiving sensitivity and responsiveness to infant stimuli. However, the association between these aspects and the key concept of paternal involvement in childcare (i.e., contribution in infant care in terms of time, availability, and responsibility) has been poorly investigated. The current work aims to systematically review the role of involvement in childcare on both neural activations and sensitive behaviors in fathers by examining (a) how paternal involvement has been measured and (b) whether paternal involvement has been associated with neurobiological activation and behavioral sensitive responses. Inclusion criteria were peer-reviewed quantitative studies, concerning fathers responding to infant stimuli at neurobiological or behavioral level, and including a quantitative measurement of paternal involvement in childcare. A quality rating for each study has been performed based on the measurements adopted to assess paternal involvement. Of 2,529 articles, 27 studies were included. According to our quality rating, 10 out of 27 studies included fairly good-standard measures for measuring paternal involvement, whereas 17 studies used good-standard measures. In addition, 11 studies provided details of paternal involvement in the context of neurobiological responses to infant stimuli, whereas 16 addressed paternal sensitive behaviors. Overall, only 8 studies reported relevant findings about the relationship between paternal involvement and neurobiological responses or sensitive behaviors in fathers. The present study is the first systematically evaluating the scope of paternal involvement in the field of Paternal Brain and fathers' sensitive responsiveness research. When high-standard measures are used, paternal involvement seems to play a significant role in modulating both the hormonal and the neural pathways associated with paternal behaviors. Remarkably, the role of paternal engagement may underpin an adaptive nurturance that is not dependent on pregnancy and childbirth but on caregiving experience. A promising positive link between paternal involvement and behavioral sensitivity may be expected in further studies, which will need to corroborate our conclusion by adopting detailed and appropriate measures assessing paternal involvement. As a future line of research, the inclusion of gay fathers may be beneficial for the field.
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The present study aims to investigate cross-cultural differences and similarities in maternal and children's adjustment to COVID-19 restrictions in Spain and Italy, with reference to determinants of maternal stress. A total of 950 mothers (45.4% from Spain, n = 432, Mage = 39.6, years old, SD = 5.2 and 54.5% from Italy, n = 518, Mage = 40.5, years, SD = 6.4) of children aged 3-17 years old completed questionnaires on sociodemographic and COVID-19 contextual factors, parenting-related variables, and children externalizing behaviors using an online survey. We examined determinants of parental stress in both countries. Mothers reported a significant increase in parental stress and child externalizing behaviors during COVID-19 home confinement, with more remarkable perceived changes in the Spanish group. Hierarchical linear regressions showed that child age and externalizing behaviors, maternal psychological distress, quality of coparenting and pre-COVID-19 levels of parental stress significantly predicted parental stress in both Italian and Spanish mothers during the pandemic. Results confirmed the negative psychological impact of COVID-19 home confinement on parents and children across countries and revealed common underlying factors responsible for parental stress in Italy and Spain. These findings highlighted the need for communitarian preventive programs to reduce mental health difficulties and parental stress in mothers and behavioral difficulties in children during pandemic restrictions. Particular attention should be paid to young mothers and children, and the key role of positive partner support and coparenting relationships should be considered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
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COVID-19 , Adolescente , Adulto , COVID-19/epidemiologia , Criança , Pré-Escolar , Comparação Transcultural , Surtos de Doenças , Feminino , Humanos , Poder Familiar/psicologia , Espanha/epidemiologiaRESUMO
Research during the COVID-19 pandemic has shown a strong relationship between child symptoms, parental stress, and mental health challenges. The pandemic has changed family routines, worsening child symptomatology and parental burden. The aim of this study was to investigate how the magnitude of the perceived changes in child externalizing behavior, parental stress, and discontinuity of therapy-from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic-affected parental mental health during the pandemic. Moreover, we sought to compare these aspects cross-culturally between European countries and the USA. To these purposes, we asked Italian, Spanish, and U.S. parents of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDD) to complete an online survey. Quantitative results showed that increased parental stress may have contributed to a worsening in parental psychological distress, regardless of culture. Moreover, they suggested an indirect effect of child externalizing behaviors on parents' psychological distress via parental stress. Qualitative analyses highlighted that the lack, or discontinuity, of therapeutic activities may have been one of the key contributors to parenting burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, qualitative results highlighted resilience factors that could have decreased the risk of psychological problems during the pandemic, such as a strong sense of parental efficacy and the ability to adapt to changing family dynamics.
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COVID-19 , Transtornos do Neurodesenvolvimento , Humanos , Criança , COVID-19/epidemiologia , Poder Familiar/psicologia , Pandemias , Comparação Transcultural , Transtornos do Neurodesenvolvimento/epidemiologiaRESUMO
Studies on parental interaction in the context of ASD has mainly focused on mothers, even if fathers and their children seem to form close and supportive relationships that may have unique effects on child development. Given the impact of ASD symptoms on a child's ability to interact with significant others, recent findings strengthen the importance of including caregivers during treatment to guarantee a better adaptation to the child's impairments. Despite this, fathers are scarcely involved, and interventions seem to not be tailored to their interactive characteristics and needs. For this reason, a systematic review was conducted to investigate fathers and children with ASD behaviors during interaction. This review found 12 observational studies that identified social, cognitive, and affective interactive modalities in father-child dyads through three psychology-focused journal databases: PubMed, PsycINFO and Scopus. The significant variation in both sample size and in the measures used to assess dyadic outcomes limits the ability of this work to make robust recommendations for intervention. Despite this, the results revealed characteristic behaviors of this dyad that consequently allow specific targets to be worked on during intervention. In fact, from fathers' individual strengths and weaknesses, it is possible to implement interventions that are complementary with maternal characteristics from the perspective of personalized and optimized treatment.
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BACKGROUND: Few studies have investigated the characteristics of father language directed to typically developing children (TD), and father speech directed to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is largely under investigated. Considering the importance of involving fathers of children with ASD in research and clinical practice, the main purpose of this study was to investigate paternal speech directed to children with ASD compared to that of fathers of TD children. METHODS: To this aim, we coded multiple functional aspects of speech during 10-min naturalistic dyadic play interactions between fathers and their preschool children with ASD (n = 20) and with TD (n = 20). RESULTS: Results showed that fathers of children with ASD displayed a peculiar child-directed language that seems to reflect the effort to provide enhanced scaffolding and reduced demands while sustaining a challenging social interaction. Specifically, fathers of children with ASD used more descriptions, fewer questions in general but more questions about child internal states. Moreover, fathers adapted aspects of their information-salient speech to the severity of child impairments. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings support the importance to include fathers in early developmental intervention programs for children with ASD, by underlying fathers' spontaneous adaptation to their children's needs.
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Transtorno do Espectro Autista , Fala , Criança , Linguagem Infantil , Pré-Escolar , Pai , Humanos , MasculinoRESUMO
Research on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted negative effects on the general population and particularly on parents. However, little is known about families of children with Neurodevelopmental Disorder (NDD). The present study investigated parental stress, coparenting, and child adjustment in Italian families with children with NDD (N = 82) and typical developing children (TD, N = 82) during lockdown, using an online survey. Results of quantitative analyses showed a significant increase in parental stress and child externalizing behaviors, but not of coparenting. Parental stress is predicted by externalizing behaviors, and coparenting acted as a moderator in the relationship between the change in the amount of time spent with the children before and during lockdown and parental stress. In children with NDD, the decrease in therapeutic/rehabilitation support predicted higher externalizing behaviors. Qualitative analysis showed that beyond the difficulties and worries arising during lockdown, most of the parents appreciated the opportunity of spending more time with their children and strengthening the parent-child relationship. In conclusion, our results point out the importance of ensuring continuity of care for children with NDD (e.g. telehealth) during home confinement and of providing psychological support for parents.
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COVID-19 , Controle de Doenças Transmissíveis/métodos , Transtornos do Neurodesenvolvimento , Pais/psicologia , Comportamento Problema/psicologia , Estresse Psicológico , Adaptação Psicológica , Adulto , COVID-19/epidemiologia , COVID-19/prevenção & controle , COVID-19/psicologia , Criança , Comportamento Infantil , Feminino , Humanos , Itália/epidemiologia , Masculino , Avaliação das Necessidades , Transtornos do Neurodesenvolvimento/epidemiologia , Transtornos do Neurodesenvolvimento/psicologia , Sistemas de Apoio Psicossocial , SARS-CoV-2 , Estresse Psicológico/etiologia , Estresse Psicológico/prevenção & controle , Inquéritos e Questionários , Telemedicina/métodosRESUMO
Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face unique challenges, which may affect parenting functioning. However, little is known about gender and cultural variations in parenting stress and styles in these families. The aims of this study were to investigate: (1a) the differences in parenting stress and (1b) social style between Italian and Japanese mothers and fathers of children with ASD; (2) the predictive role of culture, sociodemographic, and child's characteristics on parenting stress; (3) the predictors of the social parenting style, including parenting stress dimensions. The study involved 92 Italians and 89 Japanese parents of school-age children (5-12 years) with ASD who completed the Parenting Stress Index and the Parenting Style Questionnaire. Results revealed that Japanese parents showed higher parenting stress and less engagement in social style than Italians. Across cultures, mothers used more social style than fathers. Being Japanese and having a child with greater ASD severity predicted higher levels of parenting stress. We also found that country, parent's gender, and stress related to the dysfunctional interaction were significant predictors of parenting social style. Our findings highlight the importance of a cross-cultural approach to better understand the experiences and needs of mothers and fathers of children with ASD.