Gaining a new perspective on the quality of parent–adolescent relationships from adolescent speech samples.

Abstract

Although the quality of the parent-teen relationship is key to understanding both psychopathology and well-being in adolescence, there are limited assessments of adolescents' underlying attitudes regarding their parents. This study aimed to evaluate a novel and brief method of coding adolescents' 3-min speech samples regarding their affective attitudes (e.g., thoughts and feelings) toward their parent. A community sample of 72 adolescents (M age ϭ 16 years) completed a 3-min speech sample and several questionnaire measures of the quality of the parent-teen relationship and adolescents' psychosocial outcomes. Speech samples were coded for critical and warm affective attitudes toward the parent using the Family Affective Attitude Rating Scale (FAARS). Results showed that FAARS negative relational schemas (NRS) and positive relational schemas (PRS) scales were reliable and converged with questionnaire assessments of attachment and relationship quality, antisocial outcomes, and pro-social behavior. When included in the same model, adolescents' NRS, but not the questionnaire measures, was uniquely associated with externalizing behavior and prosocial behavior. Furthermore, adolescents' PRS, but not the questionnaires, was uniquely associated with callous-unemotional traits. Results suggest that the FAARS coding scheme can reliably assess adolescents' affective attitudes toward their parents and that this information is relevant to understanding adolescents' psychosocial outcomes. The implications of these findings for multimethod clinical assessments, large cohort research, and adolescents' therapeutic outcomes are discussed.

Understanding Strengths in Adolescent–Parent Relationships: A Qualitative Analysis of Adolescent Speech Samples

“…During 2017 and 2018, we collected three‐minute speech samples from 72 adolescents attending high schools in three Australian state, as part of a larger study on the usefulness of the Family Affective Attitude Rating Scale (FAARS), a novel method of coding affective attitudes, with adolescent populations (McKenna et al., 2020). The community sample of adolescents was asked to talk about their parent figure to explore normative adolescent experiences of adolescent–parent relationships.…”

“…A variety of coding systems have been adapted to quantitatively assess relationship domains, including warmth, criticism, and emotional overinvolvement, across age groups (Sher-Censor, 2015). More recently, speech samples have been used to assess the emotional climate of adolescentparent relationships (McKenna, Hassall, O'Kearney, & Pasalich, 2020;Przeworski et al, 2012;Schmidt, Tetzlaff, & Hilbert, 2015).…”

“…For example, the speech samples that were qualitatively analyzed in this study have already been used in a study which coded adolescent speech samples using the Family Affective Attitudes Rating Scale (FAARS; McKenna et al., 2020). The FAARS is a quantitative measure that allows researchers to score speech samples on items such as “critical regarding behavior of a target person” (scores are based on the number of comments made by adolescents).…”

“…This study found that the FAARS scales were uniquely related to adolescents’ outcomes such as externalizing behaviors, prosocial behaviors, and callous and unemotional traits over and above questionnaire measures of adolescent attitudes towards parents. Overall, there is good support for the feasibility and usefulness of the FMSS paradigm in measuring adolescents’ affective attitudes towards their parents (McKenna et al., 2020; Przeworski et al., 2012; Schmidt et al., 2015).…”

The narrative language of youth offenders with callous and unemotional traits: A corpus analysis

“…Although CU traits have most often been studied in forensic or clinic‐referred samples of children and adolescents, research with community samples has indicated that these traits are often associated with similar neurocognitive characteristics regardless of whether they occur in combination with antisocial behaviour or in isolation (Viding & McCrory, 2012). In terms of language, speech analysis of adolescents' discussions with their parents in a community sample found that CU traits were positively correlated with increased negative tone and language content (McKenna et al, 2020). It has also been found that among adolescent offenders high in CU traits, higher verbal abilities predicted more violent crimes (Muñoz et al, 2008).…”