Predictors of mother–child interaction quality and child attachment security in at-risk families

Abstract

Child healthy development is largely influenced by parent–child interaction and a secure parent–child attachment is predictively associated with positive outcomes in numerous domains of child development. However, the parent–child relationship can be affected by several psychosocial and socio-demographic risk factors that undermine its quality and in turn play a negative role in short and long term child psychological health. Prevention and intervention programs that support parenting skills in at-risk families can efficiently reduce the impact of risk factors on mother and child psychological health. This study examines predictors of mother–child interaction quality and child attachment security in a sample of first-time mothers with psychosocial and/or socio-demographic risk factors. Forty primiparous women satisfying specific risk criteria participated in a longitudinal study with their children from pregnancy until 18 month of child age. A multiple psychological and socioeconomic assessment was performed. The Emotional Availability Scales were used to measure the quality of emotional exchanges between mother and child at 12 months and the Attachment Q-Sort served as a measure of child attachment security at 18 months. Results highlight both the effect of specific single factors, considered at a continuous level, and the cumulative risk effect of different co-occurring factors, considered at binary level, on mother–child interaction quality and child attachment security. Implication for the selection of inclusion criteria of intervention programs that support parenting skills in at-risk families are discussed.

The Effect of Maternal Depression on Infant Attachment: A Systematic Review

“…The relationship between the occurrence of maternal depression symptoms in the postpartum period and child attachment style was evaluated in 28 of the studies included in this review. Of these, 13 found no such relationship [39,[41][42][43][44]46,[56][57][58][61][62][63][64], four studies found a weak influence [35,49,54,60] and 11 found a moderate association [40,45,47,[49][50][51][52]54,58,64]. The studies linked the effects of postnatal depression to a variety of factors.…”

Reassessing the validity of the attachment Q‐sort: An updated meta‐analysis

“…There have also been a number of other developments concerning the AQS since the 2004 meta‐analysis. It has continued to be translated into different languages (e.g., De Falco et al, ) and used in a wider range of countries (Posada et al, ). A number of shortened versions of the AQS have been developed (e.g., De Schipper, Stolk, & Schuengel, ), most notably the TAS‐45 (Kirkland, Bimler, Drawneek, McKim, & Schölmerich, ).…”

Factors contributing to parent–child interaction quality following mild traumatic brain injury in early childhood

“…They also demonstrate higher levels of joy, mutual affection, and humour, and are able to effectively diffuse negative emotions once they appear. The relation between SES and parent-child interactions is typically attributed to discrepancies in available financial (e.g., income, material assets) and human capital (e.g., knowledge, skills) between lowand high-SES families (Coleman, 1988;De Falco et al, 2014;McLoyd & Ceballo, 1998). The current results echo the vast literature supporting the role of SES in children's functioning following TBI, which suggests that higher SES positively influences cognitive, behavioural, social, and emotional recovery following head injury (Anderson, Catroppa, Haritou, Morse, & Rosenfeld, 2005;Crowe et al, 2012;Gerring & Wade, 2012;Holland & Schmidt, 2015).…”