Objective: Despite knowledge that intimate partner violence (IPV) can negatively affect children's socioemotional and behavioral development, less is known about the impact of IPV on children's ...cognitive development, including whether it influences their executive functioning (EF). The goal of the current study was to address this gap in the literature, by examining the association between IPV that occurs early in life and EF at school entry. This study also allowed for the investigation of maternal sensitive parenting behaviors as a possible mediator of this relation. Method: Using longitudinal data from a socioeconomically and racially diverse sample of families (n = 154), we investigated the association between IPV measured when children were 24, 30, and 36 months old and their EF when they were 60 months old. We also tested whether maternal sensitive parenting behaviors (measured when children were 24, 36, and 60 months old) mediated this association. Results: Results indicate that, even after controlling for a number of family- and child-level covariates, IPV occurring early in children's lives was negatively associated with their EF at school entry. This relation was mediated by maternal sensitive parenting behaviors, such that higher levels of IPV were associated with lower levels of sensitive parenting behaviors, which in turn were positively associated with children's EF. Conclusions: These findings add to a limited body of literature that links IPV and children's cognitive functioning, and suggest that intervention efforts aimed at improving children's EF may want to simultaneously consider IPV and maternal sensitive parenting behaviors.
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Little research has examined the legacy of early maternal care for later attachment representations among low-income and ethnic minority school-aged children. Using data from a sample of 276 rural, ...low-income, African-American families, this study examined associations between maternal care in infancy and children's representations of attachment figures in middle childhood. Maternal care was coded from 10-min home-based observations at 6, 15, and 24 months of age. Representations of attachment figures were assessed using the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task at 6 years of age. Sensitive maternal care in infancy was not significantly related to attachment security or episodic disorganized behaviors in children's representations. However, children exposed to more harsh-intrusive parenting during infancy displayed less secure representations of attachment figures in middle childhood and more episodic disorganized behaviors, even after controlling for numerous child and family contextual covariates. Findings inform conceptualizations of attachment formation among rural, low-income, African-American parent-child dyads.
Variation in how adults discuss their early experiences with caregivers, as captured by the AAI inferred-experience dimensions, also appears to have some predictive significance over and above ...state-of-mind dimensions, particularly in relation to adult psychopathology.Consistent with our expectations, dismissing and preoccupied states of mind had shared and distinctive antecedents in two kinds of relevant earlier experiences with caregivers: sensitivity and availability.
Research conducted in the past decade on families with young children concentrated on 5 broad topics: (a) the transition to parenthood; (b) the importance of maternal sensitivity for children's ...attachment security and subsequent adjustment and social competence; (c) the effectiveness of particular parenting styles and practices; (d) interparental, familial, and broader societal factors influencing parenting behaviors and child adjustment; and (e) the impact of family structure and household composition on children's well-being. Our review documents substantial diversity in family structures, parenting arrangements, and child-rearing values and practices both within and across ethnic and racial groups. Collectively, the evidence suggests that in most families with young children, parents and children seem to be doing well. We conclude that substantial work is required to expand the study of families with young children beyond mother-child dyads in White, middle-class, two-parent, first-marriage families.
The current study used latent profile analysis (LPA) to examine the implications of fathers' experiences of work stress for paternal behaviors with infants across multiple dimensions of parenting in ...a sample of fathers living in nonmetropolitan communities (N = 492). LPA revealed five classes of fathers based on levels of social—affective behaviors and linguistic stimulation measured during two father—infant interactions. Multinomial logistic regression analyses suggested that a less supportive work environment was associated with fathers' membership in multiple lower quality parenting classes. Greater work pressure and a nonstandard work schedule also predicted fathers' membership in the latent parenting classes, although these associations differed depending on the number of hours fathers spent in the workplace.
Observed interaction of couples during a problem-solving task and self-reports of spouses concerning their marriage were investigated before the birth of their first child and at 3, 12, and 24 months ...after the birth of the child. The study focuses on the impact of a first child's birth on the marriage. Hierarchical linear model analyses were performed. Patterns of change in the marital relationship were related to whether the pregnancy was planned, to depressive symptoms of spouses, to the couple's problem-solving behavior, and to the gender of the child.
We observed 223 largely suburban or rural public school kindergarten classrooms in 3 states to describe classroom activities and child-teacher interactions involving 1 child per classroom. We also ...observed global classroom quality and assessed its relation to teacher, school, classroom, and family characteristics and target child out-comes. Classrooms were observed once for 3 hours starting at the beginning of the school day. Time samplings of activities, teacher behaviors, and child behaviors as well as global ratings of teacher-target child interactions and the classroom environment were obtained. The most frequently observed forms of activity were structured teacher-directed activity and whole-group instruction. There was tremendous variation in the occurrence of these activities across classrooms, ranging from 0% to 100% of the observation period. Global ratings of teachers' positive interactions with the target child, classroom instructional climate, and classroom child-centered climate were lower when the concentration of poverty in the school was high, when the target child's family income was low, and when the number of staff available to work with children in that classroom was low. Target students' observed social and on-task behavior and teachers' reports of social and academic competence for target children were higher when these global ratings indicated higher quality, even controlling for family background factors. These data may have implications for educational policies on class size and composition, and issues of equity in early school experiences.
The current study explored longitudinal associations between interparental aggression, the development of child attention skills, and early childhood behavior problems in a diverse sample of 636 ...families living in predominately low-income, nonmetropolitan communities. The results of latent-variable, cross-lagged longitudinal models revealed that maternal-reported interparental aggression in infancy predicted reduced observed attention skills in toddlerhood; no association was observed, however, between attention in infancy and interparental aggression during the toddler years. Further, reduced toddler attention and high interparental aggression were both associated with increased risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms and conduct problems at 3 years of age. Processes largely operated in similar ways regardless of child gender or low-income status, although a few differences were observed. Overall, the results suggest that interparental aggression undermines attention development, putting children's early behavioral adjustment at risk.
Family systems theory proposes that an individual's functioning depends on interactive processes within the self and within the context of dyadic family subsystems. Previous research on these ...processes has focused largely on behavioral, cognitive, and psychophysiological properties of the individual and the dyad. The goals of this study were to explore genetic and environmental interactions within the family system by examining how the dopamine receptor D2 gene (DRD2) A1+ polymorphism in mothers and children relates to maternal sensitivity, how maternal and child characteristics might mediate those effects, and whether maternal sensitivity moderates the association between DRD2 A1+ and child affective problems. Evidence is found for an evocative effect of child polymorphism on parenting behavior, and for a moderating effect of child polymorphism on the association between maternal sensitivity and later child affective problems. Findings are discussed from a family systems perspective, highlighting the role of the family as a context for gene expression in both mothers and children.
Intimate Partner Violence and Children's Memory Gustafsson, Hanna C.; Coffman, Jennifer L.; Harris, Latonya S. ...
Journal of family psychology,
12/2013, Volume:
27, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The current study was designed to examine the relation between intimate partner violence (IPV) and children's memory and drew from a socioeconomically and racially diverse sample of children living ...in and around a midsized southeastern city (n = 140). Mother-reported IPV when the children were 30 months old was a significant predictor of children's short-term, working, and deliberate memory at 60 months of age, even after controlling for the children's sex and race, the families' income-to-needs ratio, the children's expressive vocabulary, and maternal harsh-intrusive parenting behaviors. These findings add to the limited extant literature that finds linkages between IPV and children's cognitive functioning and suggest that living in households in which physical violence is perpetrated among intimate partners may have a negative effect on multiple domains of children's memory development.
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