Parental reflective functioning (PRF) is the ability of parents to understand their child’s behavior in light of underlying mental processes; it is a core element in the parent–child relationship. RF is also considered crucial for self-regulation for both parents and their children. We investigated the relationship between improvement in PRF after DUET group intervention (a RF-based intervention) and improvement in the parent–child interaction, child RF, and child adjustment, and we examined whether these improvements were distinct for children with different temperamental traits (e.g., effortful control). Eighty-four parents completed the DUET program and were assessed before and after the intervention. PRF was measured using observation (mind-mindedness) and a questionnaire. Statistical analysis included hierarchical regression and moderation of regression analysis. Results showed that improvement in the parent–child interaction, child RF, and child behavioral problems were related to improvement in PRF. Furthermore, we found that child temperament acted as a moderator in the link between PRF and child RF, supporting a vantage sensitivity model, meaning that it was the more sensitive children who benefitted the most as a result of the positive change in their parents’ RF. Clinical and future directions of this study are discussed.

We examined associations between preschool children's cumulative risk exposure, dyadic interaction patterns, and self-control abilities in 238 mother–child dyads. Positive interactive synchrony, relationship ruptures, and latency to repair were micro-coded during a 3–5 minute joint challenge task. Children's self-control was assessed via two laboratory tasks and by parent report. Structural equation modeling and mediation analyses were utilized to examine the direct and indirect effects of cumulative risk on children's observed and parent-reported self-control abilities. Parent–child interactive processes of dyadic synchrony and latency to repair ruptures in synchrony were examined as mediators. Dyadic synchrony and latency to repair ruptures were found to mediate associations between cumulative risk exposure and children's behavioral and parent-reported self-control. Children exposed to more cumulative risk engaged in less dyadic synchrony and experienced longer latencies to repair ruptures with their caregiver, which in turn was associated with lower child self-control. Though cross-sectional, findings suggest dyadic synchrony and repair processes may represent viable mechanistic pathways linking cumulative risk exposure and deficits in child self-control. However, independent replications using longitudinal and experimental intervention designs are needed to determine causal pathways and inform new approaches for targeting the effects of early risk exposure through a focus on two-generational interventions.

What is the function of babbling in language learning? We examined the structure of parental speech as a function of contingency on infants’ non-cry prelinguistic vocalizations. We analyzed several acoustic and linguistic measures of caregivers’ speech. Contingent speech was less lexically diverse and shorter in utterance length than non-contingent speech. We also found that the lexical diversity of contingent parental speech only predicted infant vocal maturity. These findings illustrate a new form of influence infants have over their ambient language in everyday learning environments. By vocalizing, infants catalyze the production of simplified, more easily learnable language from caregivers.

Although deficits in cognitive empathy are well established in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the literature on emotional empathy, or emotional contagion, in individuals with ASD is sparse and contradictory. The authors tested susceptibility to contagious yawning and laughter in children with ASD (n = 60) and typically developing (TD) children (n = 60), ages 5–17 years, under various conditions, to elucidate factors that may affect emotional contagion in these populations. Although TD children showed equal amounts of emotional contagion across conditions, children with ASD were highly influenced by the familiarity of the target stimulus, as well as task instructions that encourage eye gaze to target. More specifically, children with ASD exhibited less contagious yawning and laughter than their TD peers except when their attention was explicitly directed to the eyes or (and even more so) when their parents served as the stimulus targets. The authors explore the implications of these findings for theories about the mechanisms underlying empathic deficits in ASD as well as the clinical implications of having parents involved in treatment.

Gesture plays an important role in early language development, as how parents respond to their children's gestures may help to facilitate language acquisition. Less is known about whether parental responses facilitate language learning later in childhood and whether responses vary depending on children's language ability. This study explored parental responses to extending gestures in a sample of school-aged children (aged six to eight years) with developmental language disorder, low-language and educational concerns, and typically developing children. Overall there were no group differences in the types of responses parents provided to extending gestures. Parents predominantly responded with positive feedback but also displayed moderate proportions of verbal translations and clarification requests. Within the DLD group, the proportion of parent translations was negatively associated with language ability. Our finding suggests that parent responses serve to enhance communication and engage children in tasks, but there is limited evidence that they support new language learning at this age.

In the mid to late 1980s a major controversy erupted when Belsky's (1986, 1988, 1990) analysis of research produced the conclusion that early and extensive nonmaternal care carried risks in terms of increasing the probability of insecure infant–parent attachment relationships and promoting aggression and noncompliance during the toddler, preschool, and early primary school years. Widespread critiques of Belsky's analysis called attention to problems associated with the Strange Situation procedure for measuring attachment security in the case of day-care reared children and to the failure of much of the cited research to take into consideration child-care quality and control for background factors likely to make children with varying child-care experiences developmentally different in the first place. In this lecture, research concerning the developmental effects of child care and maternal employment initiated in the first year of life that has emerged since the controversy broke is reviewed. Evidence indicating that early, extensive, and continuous nonmaternal care is associated with less harmonious parent–child relations and elevated levels of aggression and noncompliance suggests that concerns raised about early and extensive child care 15 years ago remain valid and that alternative explanations of Belsky's originally controversial conclusion do not account for seemingly adverse effects of routine nonmaternal care that continue to be reported in the literature.

Studies of cognitive vulnerability to depression in young children have, in the main, relied on self-report questionnaires (e.g. of self-esteem, attributional style). They have failed to produce convincing evidence of a cognitive vulnerability to depression in children under 8 years. In the current study latent depressive cognitions were investigated in the 5-year-old children (N = 94) of depressed and well mothers in a situation of mild stress, that is, the threat of losing a card deal in a modified version of the competitive children's card game “Snap”. In the context of “losing”, but not “winning”, deals, children who had been exposed to maternal depression, either in the previous 12 months or at any other time during their lifetime, were more likely than nonexposed children to express depressive cognitions (hopelessness, pessimism, and low self-worth). The association between depressive cognitions and recent exposure to maternal depression was in part accounted for by current maternal hostility to the child. The results of this study stand in contrast to those of studies which have used questionnaire methods to assess vulnerability to depressive cognitions in this age group. They suggest that it might be important to employ ecologically realistic situations to access latent self-cognitions in young children; and they underscore the importance, increasingly evident in research with adults and older children, of employing methods that involve the induction of low mood in order to elicit cognitions relevant to depression.

Feeding behaviour in the weaning period is important theoretically and practically. The aim of the study was to develop appropriate observational codes for its description, to assess their reliability, and to examine the relationships between feeding behaviour, meal duration, and food intake. One hundred children aged 12–14 months were visited in their own homes, and two of each child's usual meals video-recorded and analysed using direct observation. Codes were developed that distinguished between the mother feeding her child directly and assisting her child's self-feeding, and between the child's behaviour when responding to being fed by the mother and when feeding themselves. All-occurrence sampling was used to record counts of these feeding acts during the meals. Two observers replicated coding of 40 randomly chosen meals to determine the reliability of these counts. Except for three codes which were used very infrequently (median counts of zero over the 200 meals), reliability was high with ρ > ·80. There was wide variation in the extent to which individual children fed themselves during meals, with only moderate consistency from meal to meal. Food intake was uncorrelated with meal duration, but correlated with the number of bites of food taken. Adjusted for the number of bites, longer meals were associated with a lower intake. When fed by the mother the child's food intake was greater than when they fed themselves, but the duration of the meals was little affected. The coding scheme is simple to use and generally reliable, and provides a means for relating more global measures of emotional or other characteristics of mealtime behaviour to feeding behaviour and nutritional intake.

This study investigated predictors of attachment security in a play context using a sample of 71 mothers and their 6-month-old infants. We sought to rethink the concept of maternal sensitivity by focusing on mothers' ability accurately to read the mental states governing infant behaviour. Five categories were devised to assess this ability, four of which were dependent on maternal responses to infant behaviours, such as object-directed activity. The fifth, mothers' Appropriate mind-related comments, assessed individual differences in mothers' proclivity to comment appropriately on their infants' mental states and processes. Higher scores in this fifth category related to a secure attachment relationship at 12 months. Maternal sensitivity and Appropriate mind-related comments were independent predictors of attachment security at 12 months, respectively accounting for 6·5% and 12·7% of its variance. We suggest that these findings are in line with current theorising on internal working models of attachment, and may help to explain security-related differences in mentalising abilities.

A community sample of depressed and well mothers, recruited at 2 months postpartum and assessed through to 18 months, was followed up at 5 years. The quality of mother–child interactions was assessed, as was the children's behavioural and social adjustment, using maternal reports and observations of child behaviour during free play at school. Several aspects of child outcome were found to be associated with postnatal depression, even when taking account of current adverse circumstances (maternal depression and parental conflict). These included the child's behaviour with the mother, the presence of behavioural disturbance at home, and the content and social patterning of play at school. These associations with postnatal depression were independent of the child's gender. The child's relationship with the mother appeared to be mediated by the quality of infant attachment at 18 months. The mother's behaviour with her child was more affected by current difficulties, in particular by conflict with the child's father. Together these findings suggest that, while maternal behaviour varies with changing circumstances, exposure to maternal depression in the early postpartum months may have an enduring influence on child psychological adjustment.

Epilepsy in childhood may alter family relationships but the relevance of these changes for the increased rates of psychopathology has been little investigated. This study uses maternal expressed emotion (EE) to examine family relationships of children with epilepsy and the association with high risk for psychiatric disorder. EE was assessed using the Camberwell Family Interview carried out with the mothers of 22 schoolchildren with chronic epilepsy who were attending a general hospital outpatient clinic. Sixteen of these children had similarly aged healthy siblings who served as controls. High risk for psychiatric disorder in the children and mothers was assessed using behavioural, mood, and self-esteem questionnaires completed by mothers, teachers, and children. It was found that mothers showed significantly more emotional overinvolvement and a trend for more hostility towards their children with epilepsy than towards sibling controls. For the 22 children with epilepsy, maternal emotional overinvolvement was not associated with child behavioural deviance. High levels of criticism and, to a lesser extent, hostility did show associations with child behavioural deviance, and the strongest links were between maternal criticism and maternal rated antisocial and overactive behaviour in the child. Fewer positive comments by mothers towards the children were associated with child emotional symptoms and lower self-esteem in a number of areas. This study suggests that further research could consider the appropriateness of psychological intervention for families in which mothers are critical and hostile and whose children show antisocial behaviour.

The purpose of the present study was to explore patterns of mother–child interaction, children's private speech use, and behavioral self-regulation among a sample of preschool children identified by their preschool teachers as evidencing behavior problems. Forty preschoolers were classified into two groups (behaviorally at-risk and a matched comparison group) on the basis of teacher ratings of impulsivity, inattention, and hyperactivity. Children completed a magnet board puzzle task once in collaboration with their mother and once individually, and maternal and child speech and behavior were coded from videotapes. Although there were no group differences in children's behavior or speech during the collaborative session, nor were there differences in children's individual task performance or on-task attention, mother–child interaction involving behaviorally at-risk children was characterized by more other-regulation, negative control, less praise, and less physical withdrawal over time, compared to interactions involving comparison children. Behaviorally at-risk children, compared to controls, used more overt, task-relevant private speech during individual problem solving. Partially internalized private speech use among at-risk preschoolers was positively associated with task performance. Group differences rather than similarities prevailed in terms of the relations between maternal behavior, child speech, and child performance.

From a sample of middle-class mothers and their 3-year-old children, a selected group of 36 mothers were divided into 2 groups according to the quality of their responses to the Adult Attachment Interview as a Questionnaire (Crandell, Fitzgerald, & Whipple, 1997). Twenty mothers provided coherent accounts of their early parent–child relationships (secure) and 16 mothers provided idealised, entangled, or otherwise incoherent accounts of their early parent–child relationships (insecure). The mothers were administered an abbreviated version of the WAIS-R and the children were given an abbreviated version of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale. The quality of mother–child interactions was assessed by videotaping a 20-minute play episode and clean-up period, and by rating the degree of synchrony according to a modified version of the Belsky Parent–Child Interaction System (Whipple, Denburg, & Davies, 1993). The results were that children of secure mothers scored 19 points higher on the Stanford-Binet test compared to children of insecure mothers. (The adjusted mean difference was 12 points when maternal IQ, education, and family SES were taken into account.) The group difference in the children's IQ remained significant when comparisons were made between a subgroup of 12 secure and 12 insecure mothers who were matched for maternal IQ. Finally we examined the subgroup of 16 cases where child IQ scores were either 10 points higher or lower than maternal IQ. In all 6 cases where child IQ was at least 10 points below maternal IQ, the child had a mother who was insecure; in contrast, only 4 of the 10 children who had IQ scores 10 points higher than maternal IQ had an insecure mother. In terms of parent–child interaction patterns, there was suggestive evidence that the degree of parent–child synchrony was also related to child IQ. The results suggest important social-developmental contributions to young children's performance on standardised tests of intellectual ability.

In this study we examined relations between adolescents' perception of parental care and intrusiveness and the abilities–achievement gap. Cognitive abilities and academic achievement were assessed for 200 Israeli 10th graders. Representations of maternal and paternal care and intrusiveness and externalizing and internalizing symptoms were self-reported. Gender differences were found for the abilities–achievement gap. Boys' achievement in mathematics and language was significantly lower than could be expected from abilities in these domains. Representations of maternal care predicted achievement while aptitude and socioemotional symptoms were controlled and moderated the relations of abilities and achievement. Paternal representations were unrelated to abilities or achievement. Among boys, maternal intrusiveness had a unique contribution to the prediction of achievement, above and beyond abilities, socioemotional symptoms, and maternal care. The relevance of the findings to cognitive and attachment perspectives on adolescent achievement is discussed.

In a test of Patterson's Coercion Theory with young children, 156 children (82 boys and 74 girls) were studied to assess the extent to which parenting and child variables, assessed at 18 months, would predict teacher ratings of externalizing child behaviors at age 5. Child playgroup behavior, parent coercion during home observations, and marital status each emerged as predictors, whereas child temperament, attachment classification, and gender did not. At age 5, the correlates of externalizing behaviors differed for boys and girls. Boys rated higher on externalizing behaviors by the teachers presented many problems in the home and school, whereas externalizing girls did not. In fact, girls rated higher on externalizing behaviors performed better on an intelligence test, yet the girls perceived themselves as less competent.

This study was an investigation of the relationship between family variables and the perceived quality of parental involvement following parental notification of an adolescent's decision to have an abortion. Demographics, family religiosity, and family functioning variables were examined. Pregnant adolescent clients from seven abortion clinics in three states completed a survey assessing their perception of the quality of parental involvement and the family variables. Only family functioning variables were significantly related to the perceived quality of parental involvement. Family adaptability (the family's ability to change its power structure, role relationships, and relationship rules in response to situational and developmental stress) was the most predictive. Adolescents from adaptable families had a more positive experience with parental involvement than adolescents from less adaptable families.

Two factors have been associated with the quality of sibling relationships: the sex of the children and their family circumstances. Yet the data on each issue are complex. This study examines the sex constellations of sibling pairs in two groups, one of which had experienced a major family disruption (parental separation), with the aim of assessing both influences more fully. Two 1-hour home observations were conducted on 20 preschool sibling dyads of separated parents and 24 pairs in which the parents were married. In both groups the sex configuration of the sibling pairs was important — same-sex pairs seemed to show closer patterns of interaction, and sister-sister dyads were particularly prosocial. These results suggest that previous research showing that older sisters or same-sex pairs interact more are both partly correct. In addition, preschoolers from separated families interacted more. The results suggest that negative life experiences might promote greater closeness between siblings.