Impact of dysfunctional maternal personality traits on risk of offspring depression, anxiety and self-harm at age 18 years: a population-based longitudinal study.

BACKGROUND: The impact of underlying parental psychological vulnerability on the future mental health of offspring is not fully understood. Using a prospective cohort design, we investigated the association between dysfunctional parental personality traits and risks of offspring self-harm, depression and anxiety. METHODS: The association between dysfunctional parental personality traits (monotony avoidance, impulsivity, anger, suspicion, and detachment), measured in both mothers and fathers when offspring were age 9 years, and risk of offspring depression, anxiety and self-harm at age 18 years, was investigated in a population-based cohort (ALSPAC) from over 8000 parents and children. RESULTS: Higher levels of dysfunctional maternal, but not paternal, personality traits were associated with an increased risk of self-harm, depression, and anxiety in offspring. Maternal associations were best explained by the accumulation of dysfunctional traits. Associations were strongest for offspring depression: Offspring of mothers with three or more dysfunctional personality traits were 2.27 (1.45-3.54, p < 0.001) times as likely to be depressed, compared with offspring of mothers with no dysfunctional personality traits, independently of maternal depression and other variables. CONCLUSIONS: The accumulation of dysfunctional maternal personality traits is associated with the risk of self-harm, depression, anxiety in offspring independently of maternal depression and other confounding variables. The absence of associations for equivalent paternal traits makes a genetic explanation for the findings unlikely. Further research is required to elucidate the underlying mechanism. Mothers with high levels of dysfunctional personality traits may benefit from additional support to reduce the risk of adverse psychological outcomes occurring in their offspring.

The categories of hue in infancy.

Infant looking time was monitored during habituation to the repeated presentation of a wavelength stimulus selected from one basic adult hue category and after a change in stimulation. Recovery from habituation was greater to a wavelength selected from an adjacent hue category than to a wavelength from the same category even though these two stimuli were equally distant (in nanometers) from the habituation wavelength. Differential responding evidenced infants' categorical perception of hue; that is, infants see the physically continuous spectrum as divided into the hue categories of blue, green, yellow, and red. These results help to resolve the long-standing controversy surrounding the primacy of perception over language in the organization of hue.

Anxiety and stress in mothers and fathers in the 24 h after their child's surgery.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Surgery in a paediatric setting stresses children and their parents. Previous studies have focused on children and the preoperative period; however, the 24 h after child surgery are highly stressful for parents as their child is still physically recovering and physician-parent communication is vital. The aims of this study are to investigate the impact of three levels of severity of paediatric surgery on mothers' and fathers' anxiety and stress and to identify factors that contribute to parental anxiety and acute stress symptoms in the first 24 h after child surgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 154 parents (91 mothers, 63 fathers) of children who had just undergone elective surgery for a major intervention (n = 41), minor intervention (n = 64) or day surgery (n = 49) completed questionnaires aimed at assessing levels of state anxiety and acute stress symptoms. Social network, socio-economic status and parental health locus of control were evaluated as contributors. RESULTS: Parents reported high levels of state anxiety (26% had scores on the state scale 2 standard deviations above the norm) and acute stress symptoms (28% in at least one of the four acute stress disorder symptom categories). Child's type of surgery is related to parental anxiety [F(2,134) = 38.12, P = 0.0001, eta(2) = 0.175] and acute stress symptoms [F(2,133) = 31.21, P = 0.0001, eta(2) = 0.133]. Parental state anxiety was predicted by parent's gender, trait anxiety and health external locus of control. Parent's number of acute stress symptoms was predicted by parental trait anxiety, health external locus of control, parent's level of education and the number of social contacts. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need to take into consideration parental anxiety and distress in the 24 h after child surgery. Parental well-being is related to several characteristics including the severity of child surgery; these aspects should be taken into consideration when interacting with parents in the aftermath of their child's surgery.

Parenting Stress Undermines Mother-Child Brain-to-Brain Synchrony: A Hyperscanning Study.

Synchrony refers to the coordinated interplay of behavioural and physiological signals that reflect the bi-directional attunement of one partner to the other's psychophysiological, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral state. In mother-child relationships, a synchronous pattern of interaction indicates parental sensitivity. Parenting stress has been shown to undermine mother-child behavioural synchrony. However, it has yet to be discerned whether parenting stress affects brain-to-brain synchrony during everyday joint activities. Here, we show that greater parenting stress is associated with less brain-to-brain synchrony in the medial left cluster of the prefrontal cortex when mother and child engage in a typical dyadic task of watching animation videos together. This brain region overlaps with the inferior frontal gyrus, the frontal eye field, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which are implicated in inference of mental states and social cognition. Our result demonstrates the adverse effect of parenting stress on mother-child attunement that is evident at a brain-to-brain level. Mother-child brain-to-brain asynchrony may underlie the robust association between parenting stress and poor dyadic co-regulation. We anticipate our study to form the foundation for future investigations into mechanisms by which parenting stress impairs the mother-child relationship.

Fathers' play with their Down Syndrome children.

BACKGROUND: In children with Down Syndrome (DS), as in other groups of special needs children, development depends crucially on the degree to which parents provide appropriate stimulation and effective support. The majority of recent studies investigating interactions between parents and children with DS have been conducted on mothers. METHOD: Through observation of child solitary play, child collaborative play with their father, and father play with their child, the current study focused on paternal contributions to child play in association with the effective quality of father-child interactions. A total of 19 children (M chronological age = 35.32 months, SD = 10.35; M mental age = 19.58, SD = 5.43) with DS and their fathers participated in the study. Two 10-min sessions, of child solitary play and collaborative play with their father, were videorecorded. A coding system for exploratory and symbolic play was applied to both sessions, and the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales were independently applied to the collaborative play session as a measure of the effective quality of the father-child interaction. RESULTS: Children showed more symbolic play during collaborative sessions compared with solitary sessions. Bivariate correlations showed positive associations between father play and child exploratory and symbolic play. Cluster analysis identified dyads in low, medium and high EA groups, which differed in terms of each partner's play. Specifically, both fathers and children of high EA dyads were more likely to show more symbolic play and less exploratory play than those with low EA dyads. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings enrich the theoretical perspective that dyadic interactions based on emotional involvement may lead to enhanced cognitive functioning in children with DS.

Through babies' eyes: Practical and theoretical considerations of using wearable technology to measure parent-infant behaviour from the mothers' and infants' view points.

AIMS: To explore the utility of first-person viewpoint cameras at home, for recording mother and infant behaviour, and for reducing problems associated with participant reactivity, which represent a fundamental bias in observational research. METHODS: We compared footage recording the same play interactions from a traditional third-person point of view (3rd PC) and using cameras worn on headbands (first-person cameras [1st PCs]) to record first-person points of view of mother and infant simultaneously. In addition, we left the dyads alone with the 1st PCs for a number of days to record natural mother-child behaviour at home. Fifteen mothers with infants (3-12 months of age) provided a total of 14h of footage at home alone with the 1st PCs. RESULTS: Codings of maternal behaviour from footage of the same scenario captured from 1st PCs and 3rd PCs showed high concordance (kappa >0.8). Footage captured by the 1st PCs also showed strong inter-rater reliability (kappa=0.9). Data from 1st PCs during sessions recorded alone at home captured more 'negative' maternal behaviours per min than observations using 1st PCs whilst a researcher was present (mean difference=0.90 (95% CI 0.5-1.2, p<0.001 representing 1.5 SDs). CONCLUSION: 1st PCs offer a number of practical advantages and can reliably record maternal and infant behaviour. This approach can also record a higher frequency of less socially desirable maternal behaviours. It is unclear whether this difference is due to lack of need of the presence of researcher or the increased duration of recordings. This finding is potentially important for research questions aiming to capture more ecologically valid behaviours and reduce demand characteristics.

Effect of maternal zinc supplementation on the cardiometabolic profile of Peruvian children: results from a randomized clinical trial.

Zinc is an essential micronutrient for the development of the fetal renal, cardiovascular and metabolic systems; however, there is limited evidence of its effects on the postnatal cardiometabolic function. In this study, we evaluated the effect of maternal zinc supplementation during pregnancy on the cardiometabolic profile of the offspring in childhood. A total of 242 pregnant women were randomly assigned to receive a daily supplement containing iron+folic acid with or without zinc. A follow-up study was conducted when children of participating mothers were 4.5 years of age to evaluate their cardiometabolic profile, including anthropometric measures of body size and composition, blood pressure, lipid profile and insulin resistance. No difference in measures of child cardiometabolic risk depending on whether mothers received supplemental zinc during pregnancy. Our results do not support the hypothesis that maternal zinc supplementation reduces the risk of offspring cardiometabolic disease.

Categorizing the cries of infants with ASD versus typically developing infants: A study of adult accuracy and reaction time.

BACKGROUND: The cries of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) contain atypical acoustic features. The cries of typically developing infants elicit automatic adult responses, but little is known about how the atypical cries of children with ASD affect the speed with which adults process them. METHOD: We used a reaction time (RT) categorical task to analyze adults' categorization of typically developing cries, atypical (ASD) cries, mammalian animal cries, and environmental noise control sounds. 40 nonparent women (M age = 27 years) were instructed to categorize acoustic stimuli as human infant cries or non-human sounds as quickly as possible. RESULTS: The RTs for correctly categorizing the cries of children with ASD (M = 831ms, SEM = 27) were slower than RTs for typically developing child cries (M = 680ms, SEM = 6) as well as mammalian animal cries (801ms, SEM = 11) and environmental noise control sounds (M = 692ms, SEM = 10). CONCLUSIONS: This difference may reflect difficulties in adults' perceiving and processing atypical cries of children with ASD, and the findings may have implications for the parent-child relationship and for the quality of care children with ASD receive.

Immediate and selective maternal brain responses to own infant faces.

Infant faces elicit caregiving in adults. In previous research on brain responses to images of infant faces, the faces were unknown to participants. This study investigated EEG in primiparous mothers of 3- to 6-month-old infants viewing their own infant's face compared to an unfamiliar but appearance-matched infant's face. Spectral power was calculated and compared, and power at three EEG bands (delta, theta, and gamma) was found to differ between faces. Brain responses among primiparous mothers distinguish images of their own versus unfamiliar infants.

Sensitive periods in development: structural characteristics and causal interpretations.

The presence or absence of a particular experience at a particular time in the life cycle may exert an extraordinary and dramatic influence over structure or function well beyond that point in development. Such sensitive periods are thought to be widespread in animal and in human neurobiology and psychology. A comprehensive treatment of the sensitive period needs minimally to include information about its structural characteristics as well as an interpretation of its causes, including why the sensitive period arises in terms of the natural history of the species and how the sensitive period is regulated in terms of physical, physiological, and psychological processes. This article provides a framework for research and theory concerning specific sensitive periods and the sensitive period generally conceived. The framework delimits four sets of parameters, which encompass 14 structural characteristics that define sensitive periods, and two levels of causal interpretation that guide research and theory into sensitive periods however they may be manifested.

Information processing and developmental assessments in 3-month-old infants exposed prenatally to cocaine.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of prenatal cocaine exposure on 3-month infant information processing and developmental assessments. METHODS: One hundred and eight infants, 61 cocaine-exposed and 47 controls, participated at 3 months of age in an infant-control habituation and novelty responsiveness procedure and in a developmental assessment using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development both administered by experimenters blind to the drug exposure status of the infant. RESULTS: Compared to the non-drug-exposed group, infants exposed prenatally to cocaine were significantly more likely to fail to start the habituation procedure and, for those who did, significantly more likely to react with irritability early in the procedure. The majority of infants in both groups reached the habituation criterion, and among those who did there were no significant differences between cocaine and non-cocaine-exposed infants in habituation or in recovery to a novel stimulus. Infants who were cocaine-exposed showed comparatively depressed performance on the motor (Psychomotor Developmental Index) but not the mental (Mental Developmental Index (MDI)) scales of the Bayley. These results obtained for habituation and Bayley MDI controlling for both perinatal and sociodemographic factors. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in reactivity to novelty but not in information processing between cocaine-exposed and non-cocaine-exposed infants suggest that the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure may be on arousal and attention regulation rather than early cognitive processes.

Neurobehavioral profiles of neonates exposed to cocaine prenatally.

This study examined the effects of maternal cocaine use on performance on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). Cocaine-exposed newborns (n = 56) were compared with a non-cocaine-exposed group (n = 30) born to mothers with similar sociodemographic characteristics. Cocaine-exposed newborns showed significant reduction in birth weight but did not experience greater obstetric or postnatal complications. On neurobehavioral assessments using the NBAS, cocaine-exposed newborns showed significantly depressed performance on the habituation cluster but not on other NBAS clusters when differences in birth weight were controlled. In a sample of 30 cocaine-exposed newborns matched on birth weight, gestational age, and race to the 30 non-cocaine-exposed newborns, cocaine-exposed newborns continued to show depressed habituation performance. The significance of a selective effect of cocaine exposure on early habituation performance is discussed in terms of the implications for attentional regulation in the first year of life.

Color vision and hue categorization in young human infants.

Two studies examined the organization of color perception in 4-month-old human infants. In Study 1, infants looked at selected spectral stimuli repeatedly until their visual attention waned. The stimuli represented instances of basic adult hue categories - blue, green, yellow, and red. Following habituation, infants were shown a series of wavelengths which were the same as or different from the stimuli first seen. Analyses of infant attention during this dishabituation phase of the study indicated that infants categorize wavelengths by perceptual similarity; that is, they see hues in the spectrum much as adults do. In Study 2, a group of infants who looked at the alteration of two wavelengths from the same hue category habituated as did the group of infants who looked at the repitition of a single wavelength from that category, but a group of infants who looked at two wavelengths from different categories habituated at a slower rate. Data from the two studies suggest a high degree of organization of the color world prior to language acquisition.

Contemporary research on parenting. The case for nature and nurture.

Current findings on parental influences provide more sophisticated and less deterministic explanations than did earlier theory and research on parenting. Contemporary research approaches include (a) behavior-genetic designs, augmented with direct measures of potential environmental influences; (b) studies distinguishing among children with different genetically influenced predispositions in terms of their responses to different environmental conditions; (c) experimental and quasi-experimental studies of change in children's behavior as a result of their exposure to parents' behavior, after controlling for children's initial characteristics; and (d) research on interactions between parenting and nonfamilial environmental influences and contexts, illustrating contemporary concern with influences beyond the parent-child dyad. These approaches indicate that parental influences on child development are neither as unambiguous as earlier researchers suggested nor as insubstantial as current critics claim.

Neurobehavioral outcomes in diseases of childhood. Individual change models for pediatric human immunodeficiency viruses.

The growing incidence of human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in children is a major public health problem. Current research emphasizes treatments for ameliorating deleterious effects on the child's neurological and behavioral development. This article outlines approaches to the assessment of individual change that may provide alternatives to more traditional approaches to the assessment of neurobehavioral outcomes in children with chronic diseases. These approaches provide more precise conceptualizations of changes that lead directly to statistical designs and measurement strategies for assessing effects of HIV-1 and AIDS on development. Such assessments can be superimposed on current clinical trial methodologies to evaluate the efficacy of pharmacological and behavioral interventions designed to improve quality of life in HIV-1 infected children.

Child and mother cardiac vagal tone: continuity, stability, and concordance across the first 5 years.

In this prospective longitudinal study, vagal tone and heart period were measured at 2 months and at 5 years in children and their mothers to evaluate the development of vagal regulation at rest and during an environmental task. Child baseline vagal tone and heart period were discontinuous; mother baseline vagal tone was discontinuous, but heart period was continuous. Group mean baseline-to-task change in vagal tone and heart period were continuous in both children and mothers. Children reached adult levels of baseline vagal tone by 5 years and did not differ from their mothers in baseline-to-task change in vagal tone or heart period. Baseline vagal tone tended to be stable, but baseline heart period and baseline-to-task change in vagal tone and heart period were unstable in children; both were stable in mothers. Baseline-to-task change in vagal tone showed consistent child-mother concordance. These findings contribute to understanding psychophysiological development, especially the ontogenesis of the vagal system and its regulatory capacity.

Mothers' knowledge about children's play and language development: short-term stability and interrelations.

Sixty-four mothers of children ranging in age from 6 to 58 months were asked to determine, for pairings of play and language items, which item was more advanced developmentally. This procedure was repeated within 2 weeks. In general, mothers' orderings of play and language items matched those established in the developmental literature and were stable over the short term. Mothers' knowledge about language development was stronger than and unrelated to their knowledge about play, suggesting that maternal knowledge about developmental domains is differentiated and specific. Finally, mothers' judgments about the developmental milestones depended on their children's current developmental stage: Mothers were less accurate at estimating the timing of milestones that their children had mastered many months earlier, supporting the view that mothers' knowledge is informed by their children's recent rather than past achievements in specific areas.

A cross-national study of self-evaluations and attributions in parenting: Argentina, Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

This study investigated and compared ideas about parenting in Argentine, Belgian, French, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, and U.S. mothers of 20-month-olds. Mothers evaluated their competence, satisfaction, investment, and role balance in parenting and rated attributions of successes and failures in 7 parenting tasks to their own ability, effort, or mood, to difficulty of the task, or to child behavior. Few cross-cultural similarities emerged; rather, systematic culture effects for both self-evaluations and attributions were common, such as varying degrees of competence and satisfaction in parenting, and these effects are interpreted in terms of specific cultural proclivities and emphases. Child gender was not an influential factor. Parents' self-evaluations and attributions help to explain how and why parents parent and provide further insight into the broader cultural contexts of children's development.

On the development of color naming in young children: data and theory.

Among the semantics of different common attributes of the environment, consistent and correct color naming seems to develop paradoxically late in children, for even young infants discriminate and categorize colors well, color is a salient feature of the child's world, and children are aware of color as a separate domain, know color terms, and respond to color questions with color names. Several specific anomalies characterize early linguistic development in this domain: Errors in beginning color naming are perseverative or random, there seems to be a minimum age for correct and consistent color naming, developmental rate shows wide individual differences, and acquisition among girls is generally faster than among boys. This essay reviews data that support these observations, and evaluates three traditional explanations for them--including the perceptual salience of color for children, experience and learning in the child, and cognitive development--against a fourth new possibility. It is hypothesized that appropriate color naming may depend on the maturation and integration of specific cortical neurological structures; among several interpretations, the neurological one accounts best for diverse characteristics of early color naming.

Left-right coding and skills related to beginning reading.

Kindergarteners and first graders were tested for discrimination of left-right orientation, letter production, and performance on reading readiness and reading tests. Left-right visual skills were found to be related to reading skills in both grades but to letter production only in kindergarten. These data are viewed in the context of a deficit in left-right coding. The data cautiously suggest that different subgroups of reading-disabled children may benefit from training programs that remediate different deficiencies; affirmation of this strategy awaits further study of treatment.