Longitudinal effects of maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and Reminiscing and Emotion Training on children's diurnal cortisol regulation.

Dysregulation in children's physiological stress systems is a key process linking early adversity to poor health and psychopathology. Thus, interventions that improve children's stress physiology may help prevent deleterious health outcomes. Reminiscing and Emotion Training (RET) is a brief relational intervention designed to improve maternal caregiving support by enhancing maltreating mothers' capacity to reminisce with their young children. This study evaluated associations between maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and the RET intervention with changes in children's diurnal cortisol regulation across the 1 year following the intervention, and the extent to which improvements in maternal elaborative reminiscing differed between intervention groups and mediated change in children's physiological functioning. Participants were 237 children (aged 36 to 86 months) and their mothers. Results indicated that the RET intervention was associated with significant positive change in elaborative reminiscing, which was sustained over time. Mothers' elaboration immediately after the intervention served as a mediator of RET's effects on improvements in children's diurnal cortisol regulation (steeper diurnal slopes) from baseline to 1 year following intervention. This suggests RET is effective in facilitating physiological regulation among maltreated children.

Child diurnal cortisol differs based on profiles of maternal emotion socialization in high risk, low income, and racially diverse families.

Young children's physiological and emotional regulation depend on supportive caregiving, especially in the context of stress and adversity. Experiences of child maltreatment become biologically embedded by shaping stress physiology. Maternal emotion socialization may have an important influence on children's limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (LHPA) functioning. Grounded in theories of caregiver emotion socialization, a person-centered latent profile analysis was utilized to identify profiles of maternal emotion socialization among a high risk, low income, and racially diverse group of 248 mothers and their young children (Mage  = 4.39 years, SD = 1.10). The majority of the mothers (n = 165) had a history of involvement with the Department of Child Services for substantiated cases of child maltreatment. A latent profile analysis was conducted revealing three emotion socialization profiles: disengaged, engaged, and engaged + supportive. Emotion socialization profile differences in children's diurnal cortisol levels and slope (using area under the curve with respect to ground and increase, respectively) were examined. Children's diurnal cortisol levels were higher, and slopes were flatter, when mothers used more disengaged emotion socialization strategies. Mothers who neglected their children were more likely to fit the disengaged profile than the engaged profile. Implications for the socialization of regulation in children exposed to adversity are discussed.

Maternal distress across the postnatal period is associated with infant secretory immunoglobulin A.

Employing a longitudinal design, relationships between maternal distress (i.e., perceived stress, negative affect, depressive symptomology), and infant secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) across the peripartum period were examined in 51 mother-infant dyads. Indices of maternal distress were assessed at four time periods: third trimester of pregnancy and 1, 3, and 6 months postpartum. Infant saliva samples were collected at each of the three time points in the postpartum period to assess sIgA levels. No relationships were found between prenatal maternal distress and infant sIgA. Results indicated that during the postnatal period, higher concurrent maternal distress was associated with reduced infant sIgA. Maternal distress did not prospectively predict infant sIgA. These findings advance our understanding of the social-context of infant development, highlighting the significance of maternal regulation of infant immunity.

Marital Conflict Predicts Mother-to-Infant Adrenocortical Transmission.

Employing an experimental design, mother-to-infant transmission of stress was examined. Mothers (N = 117) were randomized to either have a positive or conflictual discussion with their marital partners, after which infants (age = 6 months) participated in a fear and frustration task. Saliva samples were collected to assess maternal cortisol responses to the discussion and infant cortisol responses to the challenge task. Results indicate maternal cortisol reactivity and recovery to the conflict (but not positive) discussion predicted infant cortisol reactivity to the infant challenge. Mothers' positive affect during the discussion buffered, and intrusion during the free-play potentiated, mother-to-infant adrenocortical transmission. These findings advance our understanding of the social and contextual regulation of adrenocortical activity in early childhood.

Maternal elaborative reminiscing mediates the effect of child maltreatment on behavioral and physiological functioning.

Theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that the way in which parents discuss everyday emotional experiences with their young children (i.e., elaborative reminiscing) has significant implications for child cognitive and socioemotional functioning, and that maltreating parents have a particularly difficult time in engaging in this type of dialogue. This dyadic interactional exchange, therefore, has the potential to be an important process variable linking child maltreatment to developmental outcomes at multiple levels of analysis. The current investigation evaluated the role of maternal elaborative reminiscing in associations between maltreatment and child cognitive, emotional, and physiological functioning. Participants included 43 maltreated and 49 nonmaltreated children (aged 3-6) and their mothers. Dyads participated in a joint reminiscing task about four past emotional events, and children participated in assessments of receptive language and emotion knowledge. Child salivary cortisol was also collected from children three times a day (waking, midday, and bedtime) on 2 consecutive days to assess daily levels and diurnal decline. Results indicated that maltreating mothers engaged in significantly less elaborative reminiscing than did nonmaltreating mothers. Maternal elaborative reminiscing mediated associations between child maltreatment and child receptive language and child emotion knowledge. In addition, there was support for an indirect pathway between child maltreatment and child cortisol diurnal decline through maternal elaborative reminiscing. Directions for future research are discussed, and potential clinical implications are addressed.

Maternal-child adrenocortical attunement in early childhood: continuity and change.

This study evaluated continuity and change in maternal-child hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis attunement in early childhood. Participants were drawn from a prospective study of 1,292 mother-child dyads, which were racially diverse, predominantly low-income, and non-urban. Child focused stress tasks designed to elicit anger, fear, and frustration were administered during early infancy, later infancy, and toddlerhood. Mothers' and children's saliva samples (later assayed for cortisol) were collected before and after the tasks. The strength of mother-child adrenocortical attunement was conserved across infancy and toddlerhood. The magnitude of maternal-child adrenocortical attunement decreased in response to the child-focused stress tasks. Maternal sensitivity and the child's task-related emotional reactivity moderated adrenocortical attunement across the task, with greater maternal sensitivity during a free-play, and lower levels of child emotional reactivity during the stress tasks, stabilizing attunement from pre- to post-task levels. The findings advance our understanding of individual differences in the social regulation of adrenocortical activity in early childhood.

Do state factors moderate the relationship between depressive symptoms and morning cortisol?

To fully capitalize on the utility of morning cortisol in biosocial studies of health and well-being researchers must carefully control for potential confounds. Recent reports have highlighted wake time, workday, and anticipatory negative emotions as regulators of intra-individual variation, with the potential to obscure cortisol-trait associations if not properly controlled. The purpose of this analysis is to examine the potential for trait-factors (i.e., depressive symptoms) to interact with state fluctuations in the prediction of morning cortisol. Saliva samples were collected from 56 working women at awakening and 30 min post awakening. Samples were collected on four consecutive days-two non-workdays followed by two workdays. Confirming prior research, morning cortisol levels were higher on work days and when individuals had early wake times. However, this relationship was strongest for women with fewer depressive symptoms. Similarly, only in women with fewer depressive symptoms was workday related to higher cortisol levels, and the anticipation of high negative affect related to steeper CARs and higher cortisol levels. Findings raise the possibility that certain populations may not be as physiologically sensitive to external regulatory cues, thus affecting intra-individual differences in HPA axis activity. Implications for future biobehavioral studies of depression and studies involving non-clinical samples are discussed.

Deviations in stress and support: Associations with parenting emotions across the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stress is a potent disruptor of parents' emotional well-being and interactions with their children. In the context of the early months of the unfolding pandemic, parents' stress likely fluctuated, with downstream impacts on their parenting experiences. The sample consisted of 72 Latina mothers who participated in a 15-20-min phone interview roughly once a month between March 2020 and January 2021. Mothers were asked about their experiences of stress, the quality of partner support, and their emotional experience of parenting. Analyses revealed that mothers' experiences of stress were high at the beginning of the pandemic and slowly decreased as time went on, though this decline eventually leveled off. Partner support and mothers' emotional experiences of parenting, on the other hand, did not change across the first 10 months of the pandemic. Collectively, the within and between analyses revealed that stress (individually), and stress and support (interactively) were associated with mothers' emotional experiences while interacting with their children. Between-subjects analyses revealed greater stress was associated with greater negative emotions during parenting, though support did not buffer this association. Within-subjects analyses revealed a quadratic association between stress and positive parenting emotions, such that at lower levels of stress, increases in stress were associated with more positive than typical emotions during parenting. However, the inclusion of social support into the model as a moderator revealed that when mothers received less support than typical from their partners, mothers' greater experience of stress was associated with their greater experience of negativity during parent-child interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Latina mothers navigating COVID-19: Within- and between-family stress processes over time.

Objective: This study aimed to understand how periodic shifts in financial cutbacks and fears of contracting COVID-19 contributed to children's externalizing behaviors due to increases in maternal stress among low-income Latina mothers during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread health, economic, and psychological consequences for families and children. The Latino community is particularly vulnerable to the economic and health risks of this pandemic as a consequence of systemic oppression. The family stress model suggests that these family stressors will have psychological repercussions to parents, and downstream behavioral consequences to children. Method: We examined both the within- and between-person impacts of worry surrounding contracting the virus and the economic consequences of the pandemic on maternal stress and child externalizing behaviors. Participants were 73 Latina mothers who completed assessments an average eight times across the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. At each assessment time, the mother was asked about worries surrounding contracting the virus, economic cutbacks the family was making, her perceived stress, and her child's externalizing behaviors during a brief phone call. Results: Between-families, higher economic cutbacks indirectly increased child externalizing behaviors through maternal stress. The within-family model revealed that at assessments when mothers expressed greater worry about contracting the COVID-19 virus, they also reported greater stress. Further, at the within-person level, a mother's greater experience of stress was associated with greater reports of child externalizing behaviors, though the indirect association between COVID-19 contract worry and child externalizing behaviors through maternal stress was not significant. Conclusions: Across the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the children in Latino families participating in this research exhibited more externalizing behaviors among families that engaged in more financial cutbacks as a function maternal stress. However, periodic spikes in Latina mothers' fears of contracting COVID-19 contributed to periodic spikes in stress, which predicted periodic spikes in child externalizing behaviors. Implications: Greater effort toward social policy that provides economic support for vulnerable families before periods of increased societal stress and greater protections for workers with limited sick leave and schedule flexibility will help promote resilience to future crises among low-income Latino families.

Maternal sensitivity buffers the adrenocortical implications of intimate partner violence exposure during early childhood.

This study prospectively examined the effect of intimate partner violence (IPV) on adrenocortical reactivity and recovery during early childhood. The sample (n = 1102 mother-infant dyads; 49.2% male) was racially diverse and from predominantly low-income, rural communities. To measure IPV exposure mothers completed the Conflicts Tactics Scale, and her caretaking behaviors were observed when her child was approximately 7, 15, and 24 months of age. Children's saliva samples, later assayed for cortisol, were collected around challenge tasks designed to elicit emotional reactivity. IPV was related to a trajectory of increased cortisol reactivity from infancy to toddlerhood. By contrast, the trajectory for non-IPV-exposed children decreased in cortisol reactivity across 7 to 24 months of age. At the 24-month assessment, on average, toddlers did not exhibit a cortisol reaction; however, those exposed to high levels of violence continued to have reactivity. Accumulative levels of IPV across the first 2 years of life predicted cortisol reactivity at 24 months of age. Early (7-month) sensitive maternal behavior moderated this relationship, so that only children exposed to both early insensitivity and high accumulated IPV exhibited increased reactivity at the 24-month assessment. Findings are discussed in relation to the risky family framework.

Studying caregiver-infant co-regulation in dynamic, diverse cultural contexts: A call to action.

Caregivers and infants co-regulate their physiology, emotions, and behavior in a way that is dynamically responsive to each other and the contexts in which they live. This paper is an introduction and call to action for researchers interested in understanding how to study caregiver-infant interactions in the home and diverse cultural contexts, including marginalized communities. We argue that research will be more valid, culturally relevant, and tapped-in to the daily lives of caregivers and infants if there is partnership and collaboration with the caregivers in the design of the questions, data collection and analysis, and distribution of the findings. We recommend dynamically assessing emotions, behaviors, and physiology using repeated sampling methods including ecological momentary assessments (EMA), salivary bioscience, and actigraphy. We aim to extend current practices of studying caregiver-infant co-regulation by measuring fluctuations of daily life and considering sociocultural factors that shape naturalistic caregiver-infant interactions. Using methodological advancements and community-based participatory research approaches can enable developmental scientists to measure life as it is actually lived.

The psychological and economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic on Latina mothers in primarily low-income essential worker families.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic will have widespread health, economic, and psychological consequences. Reports indicate the Latino community is particularly vulnerable to the economic and health risks of this pandemic as a consequence of systemic oppression. Latina mothers, in particular, are navigating the pandemic from their racialized, gendered, and classed positions while caring for children and families. These factors are likely to have a significant psychological toll. Method: The sample consisted of 70 Latina mothers. The majority of the families (72%) contained at least one employed adult, of which 91.7% were essential workers. Factors associated with stress, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms during the initial March 20 - June 1, 2020 California "shelter in place" mandate were assessed via phone survey using validated measures and Likert-scale items created for the study. Receipt of the federal stimulus check on stress, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms was also assessed. Results: Due to the pandemic, 52.7% of the mothers reported being forced to engage in economic cutbacks. Mothers' experiences of stress during the outbreak stem from worries about themselves contracting the virus and making economic cutbacks. Economic cutbacks were also associated with greater reports of depressive and anxiety symptoms. Receiving the stimulus payment did not reduce economic cutbacks, contract worries, stress, or depressive and anxiety symptoms. Conclusion: Findings highlight the pandemic's immediate economic toll on Latino families. Further, these economic implications seem to be having downstream effects on mothers' psychological well-being, that were not alleviated by the stimulus payment.

Intimate partner violence indirectly dysregulates child diurnal adrenocortical functioning through positive parenting.

Data were drawn from an ongoing study of preschoolers (N = 221). Mothers self-reported experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) and parenting practices, and collected three saliva samples (waking, midday, and bedtime) on themselves and their child on 2 consecutive days. Saliva samples were later assayed for cortisol. Bootstrapped mediation analyses revealed IPV to indirectly impact child diurnal cortisol through positive parenting. Specifically, greater exposure to IPV was associated with reduced positive parenting and subsequently heightened child waking cortisol levels. IPV did not indirectly impact child diurnal cortisol via autonomy supporting parenting or maternal diurnal cortisol. These findings suggest a possible pathway by which mother's experience of IPV indirectly influences child physiological regulation via maternal positive parenting.

Child Maltreatment and Mother-Child Transmission of Stress Physiology.

In the current study, we examined the attunement and transmission of mother-child diurnal cortisol among maltreating (N = 165) and nonmaltreating (N = 83) mothers and their preschool-aged children. Over half of the families had a substantiated child maltreatment case with the mother as the perpetrator. Mothers collected three saliva samples (waking, midday, and bedtime) on themselves and their child on two consecutive days, which were later assayed for cortisol. This design allows for the examination of concurrent attunement, as well as cross-lagged transmission, across the day. Results from actor-partner interdependence models revealed significant differences in mother-child cortisol attunement and transmission between the maltreating and nonmaltreating groups. Specifically, only maltreating mothers transmitted cortisol to their children and were attuned at first waking; only nonmaltreating dyads were attuned at midday. Implications of these results for sociocultural models of stress physiology and for our understanding of how child maltreatment affects diurnal cortisol regulation are discussed.

Intimate partner violence indirectly dysregulates child diurnal adrenocortical functioning through positive parenting.

Data were drawn from an ongoing study of preschoolers (N = 221). Mothers self-reported experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) and parenting practices, and collected three saliva samples (waking, midday, and bedtime) on themselves and their child on two consecutive days. Saliva samples were later assayed for cortisol. Bootstrapped mediation analyses revealed IPV to indirectly impact child diurnal cortisol through positive parenting. Specifically, greater exposure to IPV was associated with reduced positive parenting and subsequently heightened child waking cortisol levels. IPV did not indirectly impact child diurnal cortisol via autonomy supporting parenting or maternal diurnal cortisol. These findings suggest a possible pathway by which mother's experience of IPV indirectly influences child physiological regulation via maternal positive parenting.

Efficacy of a reminiscing and emotion training intervention on maltreating families with preschool-aged children.

The current investigation reports the results of a randomized controlled trial of a brief, relational intervention for maltreated preschool-aged children and their mothers, called Reminiscing and Emotion Training (RET). RET facilitates elaborative and emotionally supportive parent-child communication, which is an essential component of the parent-child relationship and is especially relevant for the preschool age period. Participants were 248 children between the ages of 3- to 6-years-old and their mothers. Following a baseline assessment, 165 maltreating families were randomized into RET or a Community Standard (CS) condition in which families received case management and written parenting information; 83 families participated in the nonmaltreating comparison condition. Results indicated that the key mechanisms targeted by the RET interventions were enhanced, such that mothers who participated in RET were significantly better in elaboration and sensitive guidance during reminiscing at the posttest than were maltreating mothers who did not receive the intervention, with medium to large effect sizes; additionally, mothers in the RET group were more elaborative than mothers from the nonmaltreatment group. Children in the RET condition also contributed significantly more memories and had better emotional knowledge than did children in the CS condition, controlling for baseline values and language, and approximated the functioning of nonmaltreated children. These findings add to a growing literature underscoring the benefits of brief, focused, relational interventions for maltreated children and their caregivers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Maternal and child contributions to cortisol response to emotional arousal in young children from low-income, rural communities.

Relations of maternal and child characteristics to child cortisol reactivity to and recovery from emotional arousal were examined prospectively at approximately 7 months of age (infancy) and then again at approximately 15 months of age (toddlerhood). The sample was diverse and population based (N = 1,292 mother-infant dyads) and included families from predominantly low-income, rural communities. Maternal behavior, family income-to-need ratio and social advantage, and child temperament, attention, and mental development were assessed, and children's saliva was sampled before and after standardized procedures designed to elicit emotional arousal. Maternal engagement in infancy was associated with greater cortisol reactivity at the infancy assessment and with reduced overall cortisol level at the toddler assessment. Also at the toddler assessment, child attention, mental development, and temperamental distress to novelty were associated with increased cortisol reactivity and regulation, whereas temperamental distress to limitations and African American ethnicity were associated with reduced cortisol reactivity. Findings are consistent with prior work linking early caregiving to the development of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress response system and with a conceptual model in which developing temperament is characterized by the interplay of emotional reactivity and the emergence of the ability to effortfully regulate this reactivity using attention.

Ecologically salient stressors and supports and the coordination of cortisol and salivary alpha-amylase in mothers and infants.

This study examines the integration of the two main branches of the stress response system: the autonomic nervous system (via salivary alpha-amylase, sAA) and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (via cortisol). Mothers (n = 117) were randomized to have either a positive (n = 57) or conflictual (n = 60) discussion with their marital partner, after which mothers and infants (Mage = 5.9 months) engaged in free-play, followed by an infant-focused challenge task. Saliva samples were collected from the mother to assess physiological reactivity and recovery to the marital discussion, and from the infant to assess physiological reactivity and recovery to the challenge task. For both mothers and infants, sAA - cortisol coordination varied across the respective tasks. Further, findings suggest the sAA - cortisol connection is under social control, with stress response system coordination occurring only in supportive social relationships (i.e., mothers experiencing cohesive marital discussions, and in infants with sensitive and responsive mothers). Interestingly, however, it appears social support might function differently in mothers vs infants. Findings advance our understanding of the complex integration of stress physiology in the context of social relationships.

The impact of marital withdrawal and secure base script knowledge on mothers' and fathers' parenting.

The current study examines associations between marital conflict and negative parenting behaviors among fathers and mothers, and the extent to which internal working models (IWMs) of attachment relationships may serve as sources of risk or resilience during family interactions. The sample consisted of 115 families (mothers, fathers, and their 6-month-old infants) who participated in a controlled experiment. Couples were randomly assigned to engage in either a conflict or positive marital discussion, followed by parent-infant freeplay sessions and assessment of parental IWMs of attachment (i.e., secure base script knowledge). While no differences in parenting behaviors emerged between the conflict and positive groups, findings revealed that couple withdrawal during the marital discussion was related to more intrusive and emotionally disengaged parenting for mothers and fathers. Interestingly, secure base script knowledge was inversely related to intrusion and emotional disengagement for fathers, but not for mothers. Furthermore, only among fathers did secure base script knowledge serve to significantly buffer the impact of marital disengagement on negative parenting (emotional disengagement). Findings are discussed using a family systems framework and expand our understanding of families, and family members, at risk. (PsycINFO Database Record

Blood contamination in children's saliva: prevalence, stability, and impact on the measurement of salivary cortisol, testosterone, and dehydroepiandrosterone.

The prevalence, stability, and impact of blood contamination in children's saliva on the measurement of three of the most commonly assayed hormones were examined. Participants were 363 children (47% boys; ages 6-13 years) from economically disadvantaged families who donated saliva samples on 2 days in the morning, midday, and late afternoon. Samples (n=2178) were later assayed for cortisol (C), testosterone (T), and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). To index the presence of blood (and its components) in saliva, samples were assayed for transferrin. Transferrin levels averaged 0.37 mg/dl (SD=0.46, range 0.0-5.5, Mode=0), and were: (1) highly associated within individuals across hours and days, (2) positively correlated with age, (3) higher for boys than girls, (4) higher in PM than AM samples, and (5) the highest (>1.0 mg/dl) levels were rarely observed in samples donated from the same individuals. Transferrin levels were associated with salivary DHEA and C, but less so for T. As expected, the relationships were positive, and explained only a small portion of the variance. Less than 1% of the statistical outliers (+2.5 SDs) in salivary hormone distributions had correspondingly high transferrin levels. We conclude that blood contamination in children's saliva samples is rare, and its effects on the measurement of salivary hormones is small. Guidelines and recommendations are provided to steer investigators clear of this potential problem in special circumstances and populations.