Developmental Trajectories of Maternal Sensitivity across the First Year of Life: Relations among Emotion Competence and Dyadic Reciprocity

Non-suicidal Self-injury History Moderates the Association Between Maternal Emotional Support and Adolescent Affect During Conflict

Onset of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is most frequent during adolescence. Etiological models indicate that abnormal affective reactivity and regulation within interpersonal contexts is related to heightened NSSI risk. The current study examined the effects of maternal emotional support on adolescent sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity and observed anger during a conflict discussion among 56 mother-daughter dyads consisting of healthy adolescents and adolescents with a history of self-injury. During the conflict discussion task, maternal emotional support and adolescent anger were coded from behavior, and cardiovascular pre-ejection period was used to index SNS responding. Results demonstrated that maternal emotional support was negatively associated with adolescent anger and SNS activity during the conflict. However, these associations were not significant among adolescents with heightened NSSI history. Maternal emotional support may serve as an interpersonal mechanism for adolescent physiological and behavioral regulation, yet may function differently among adolescents with more frequent NSSI.

When I move, you move: Associations between automatic and person-coded measures of infant-mother synchrony during free-play using virtual in-home data collection

The relationship between movement synchrony and global scores of behavioral synchrony were investigated during a naturalistic free-play between 33 infants (ages 12- to 24-months) and their mothers using a video-conferencing platform. We assessed movement synchrony by applying an automatic tool, motion-energy analysis (MEA), to the obtained video data. Dyadic movement synchrony was associated with higher levels of maternal sensitivity, infant involvement, dyadic reciprocity, and a child-led interaction pattern. This demonstrates the feasibility of using MEA as an automatic tool for assessing movement synchrony in mother-infant dyads and its application for investigating naturalistic at-home free play sessions in a remote setting.

Patterns of maternal interactive behaviors and dual vocabulary development in Mexican American children

Children learn the words of their native language(s) from interactions with their caregivers. Although previous research has found that the language children hear during those interactions predicts vocabulary outcomes, few studies have investigated how qualitative features of social interactions work together to affect children's vocabulary development, particularly for underresourced, language minoritized children. This study examined patterns of maternal interactive behaviors during toddlerhood in relation to children's later Spanish and English vocabulary development among 318 low-income, Mexican American families. Five maternal behaviors (acknowledging, elaborating, gaze, vocal appropriateness, and overriding) were coded from video recordings at age 24 months. At 36 and 54 months, child expressive vocabulary was assessed in both English and Spanish. Latent class analysis identified five distinct patterns of maternal interactive behaviors, which differentially supported or compromised child expressive language in English and Spanish. Implications of these findings for better understanding the role of caregiver interactions in dual language vocabulary development are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).