Predicting adult responses to infant distress: Adult characteristics associated with perceptions, emotional reactions, and timing of intervention

Zeifman, Debra M.

doi:10.1002/imhj.10077

Cited by 70 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 52 publications

(51 reference statements)

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“…Older parents reported longer latency to caregiving. Lester et al, [1989a]; Ziefman, [2003] Parental personality/characteristics Parents rated as more empathic, higher neuroticism, higher extraversion, and lower conscientious had more sensitive responses to infant distress.…”

Section: Clinical Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of infant cry: Acoustic cry analysis and parental perception

LaGasse

Neal

Lester

2005

Ment. Retard. Dev. Disabil. Res. Rev.

197

173

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Infant crying signals distress to potential caretakers who can alleviate the aversive conditions that gave rise to the cry. The cry signal results from coordination among several brain regions that control respiration and vocal cord vibration from which the cry sounds are produced. Previous work has shown a relationship between acoustic characteristics of the cry and diagnoses related to neurological damage, SIDS, prematurity, medical conditions, and substance exposure during pregnancy. Thus, assessment of infant cry provides a window into the neurological and medical status of the infant. Assessment of infant cry is brief and noninvasive and requires recording equipment and a standardized stimulus to elicit a pain cry. The typical protocol involves 30 seconds of crying from a single application of the stimulus. The recorded cry is submitted to an automated computer analysis system that digitizes the cry and either presents a digital spectrogram of the cry or calculates measures of cry characteristics. The most common interpretation of cry measures is based on deviations from typical cry characteristics. Another approach evaluates the pattern across cry characteristics suggesting arousal or under-arousal or difficult temperament. Infants with abnormal cries should be referred for a full neurological evaluation. The second function of crying--to elicit caretaking--involves parent perception of the infant's needs. Typically, parents are sensitive to deviations in cry characteristics, but their perception can be altered by factors in themselves (e.g., depression) or in the context (e.g., culture). The potential for cry assessment is largely untapped. Infant crying and parental response is the first language of the new dyadic relationship. Deviations in the signal and/or misunderstanding the message can compromise infant care, parental effectiveness, and undermine the budding relationship. (c) 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc. MRDD Research Reviews 2005;11:83-93.

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Section: Clinical Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of infant cry: Acoustic cry analysis and parental perception

LaGasse

Neal

Lester

2005

Ment. Retard. Dev. Disabil. Res. Rev.

197

173

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“…First, acoustic properties related to affective and infant care responses were variable and often not replicated, although fundamental frequency, cry duration, dysphonation, and pauses received the most attention (105,106,(108)(109)(110)(111)(112)(113). Second, almost all studies used single cries; brief segments (10-15 s), or, at most (rarely), 4 min (106,(112)(113)(114)(115) of crying, such that responses were based on short segments taken out of context (106,116). Third, only one study (113) related continuous acoustic changes in spontaneous crying to concurrent adult ratings of infant distress (for 4 min).…”

Section: Crying As the Stimulus For Aht/sbs And Infant Physical Abusementioning

confidence: 99%

Preventing abusive head trauma resulting from a failure of normal interaction between infants and their caregivers

Barr

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

100

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Head trauma from abuse, including shaken baby syndrome, is a devastating and potentially lethal form of infant physical abuse first recognized in the early 1970s. What has been less recognized is the role of the early increase in crying in otherwise normal infants in the first few months of life as a trigger for the abuse. In part, this is because infant crying, especially prolonged unsoothable crying, has been interpreted clinically as something wrong with the infant, the infant's caregiver, or the interactions between them. Here, we review an alternative developmental interpretation, namely, that the early increase in crying is a typical behavioral development in normal infants and usually does not reflect anything wrong or abnormal. We also review evidence indicating that this normal crying pattern is the most common trigger for abusive head trauma (AHT). Together, these findings point to a conceptualization of AHT as the consequence of a failure in an otherwise common, iterative, and developmentally normal infant-caregiver interaction. They also imply that there is a window of opportunity for prevention of AHT, and potentially other forms of infant abuse, through a public health primary universal prevention strategy aimed at changing knowledge and behaviors of caregivers and society in general concerning normal development of infants and the significance of early increased infant crying. If effective, there may be important implications for prevention of infant abuse nationally and internationally.infant development | colic | excessive crying | child maltreatment | parenting A busive head trauma (AHT), also known more commonly as shaken baby syndrome (SBS), is a devastating and potentially lethal form of infant physical abuse (1). The outcomes are grim. In recognized cases, AHT typically results in death or extremely damaging injuries. About 18-25% of babies who are shaken and hospitalized die (2-7). As many as 80% of survivors have significant lifelong brain injuries (3,8,9). Although currently under study, there are no published estimates of lifetime costs per victim specific to AHT. However, the conservative estimated lifetime costs per victim is $210,012 for nonfatal child maltreatment or $1,272,900 for a death from child maltreatment (in 2010 dollars) for a total estimated economic burdern in the US for one year of $124 billion (10). Given its relative severity compared to other forms of maltreatment, these per victim estimates are likely to underestimate the lifetime costs for AHT victims. Of course, the "costs" go far beyond financial considerations, and include the destruction of families and the failure of society's moral obligation to protect defenseless infants.Preventing child maltreatment of any kind is challenging (11) because of the lack of specific stimuli for abuse, the density and difficulties of modifying risk factors in which families of maltreated children are often embedded, and the challenges of getting appropriate supports to the families. However, the convergence of our increasing un...

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“…Yet, in the last 15 years, few studies have attempted to identify specific parental characteristics that predict parents’ responses to their children’s negative emotions. Some maternal characteristics that have been found to be associated with mothers’ insensitive responses to their young children’s negative emotions include: a disengaged or avoidant coping style (Gudmundson & Leerkes, 2012), negative emotionality (Leerkes, 2010; Leerkes, Parade, & Gudmundson, 2011), low levels of empathy (Leerkes, 2010; Zeifman, 2003), negative attitudes toward infant crying (Zeifman, 2003), and more parent-centered goals related to child distress (e.g., a desire to stop the infant’s crying because it interferes with one’s own productivity; Leerkes, 2010). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal Attachment Style and Responses to Adolescents’ Negative Emotions: The Mediating Role of Maternal Emotion Regulation

Jones

Brett

Ehrlich³

et al. 2014

Parenting

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SYNOPSIS Objective Previous research has examined the developmental consequences, particularly in early childhood, of parents’ supportive and unsupportive responses to children’s negative emotions. Much less is known about factors that explain why parents respond in ways that may support or undermine their children’s emotions, and even less is known about how these parenting processes unfold with adolescents. We examined the associations between mothers’ attachment styles and their distress, harsh, and supportive responses to their adolescents’ negative emotions two years later and whether these links were mediated by maternal emotion regulation difficulties. Design Mothers in a longitudinal study (n = 230) reported on their attachment style, difficulties regulating their emotions, and their hypothetical responses to their adolescents’ negative emotions, respectively, at consecutive laboratory visits one year apart. Results Mothers who reported greater attachment-related avoidance and anxiety reported having greater difficulties with emotion regulation one year later. Emotion dysregulation, in turn, predicted more distressed, harsher, and less supportive maternal responses to adolescents’ negative emotions the following year. In addition, greater avoidance directly predicted harsher maternal responses two years later. Conclusions These findings extend previous research by identifying maternal attachment style as a predictor of responses to adolescent distress and by documenting the underlying role of emotion dysregulation in the link between adult attachment style and parenting.

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Predicting adult responses to infant distress: Adult characteristics associated with perceptions, emotional reactions, and timing of intervention

Cited by 70 publications

References 52 publications

Assessment of infant cry: Acoustic cry analysis and parental perception

Assessment of infant cry: Acoustic cry analysis and parental perception

Preventing abusive head trauma resulting from a failure of normal interaction between infants and their caregivers

Maternal Attachment Style and Responses to Adolescents’ Negative Emotions: The Mediating Role of Maternal Emotion Regulation

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