2-029 - Examining the importance of physiological self-regulation for parent-child processes across the spectrum of risk

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Understanding the nature of regulatory deficits associated with maladaptive parenting could be greatly informative to interventions designed to reduce aversive parenting and support children’s healthy developmental outcomes. Physiological measures of self-regulation are particularly well-suited for investigating parent-child processes because they capture real-time reactivity to context and can forecast moment-to-moment shifts in the quality of parent-child transactions. However, gaps remain in our understanding of patterns of autonomic responding that support the development of positive parenting and healthy self-regulation in children.

These innovative studies focus on dynamic physiological changes during mother-child interactions, use of observational measures of dyadic coordination, and multilevel modeling of within-person and -dyad associations in physiology and behavior. Studies focus on parasympathetic (PNS) regulation of autonomic arousal, essential for promoting calm social engagement, as well as sympathetic (SNS) influences, which increase fight-or-flight styles of coping, including aggressive and aversive behaviors.

In Paper 1, we present growth trajectories of rater-coded dyadic synchrony and mother’s respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) during a challenging mother-child joint task. In Paper 2, we report results of a latent profile analysis of dyadic coordination in mother-preschooler dyads, child maltreatment, and associations with children’s RSA and inhibitory control. Paper 3 presents three methodological options for modeling physiological interdependence in simultaneously-assessed mother and child RSA (respiratory sinus arrhythmia) and PEP (pre-ejection period) data within- and across-dyads during a set of standardized laboratory interactions. The Discussant will provide an integrative synthesis of the three papers in the broader context of relational and bioecological models of the development of self-regulation.

Sub Unit

• Biological Processes

Chair

• Elizabeth A. Skowron, University of Oregon

Discussant

• Paul David Hastings, U California, Davis

Individual Presentations

• Child Maltreatment (CM) Moderates Growth Models of Dyadic Positive Synchrony and Maternal Parasympathetic Tone - Presenting Author: Ryan Jeffrey Giuliano, University of Oregon; Elizabeth A. Skowron, University of Oregon; Elliot Berkman, University of Oregon

• Latent profiles of dyadic synchrony, rupture and repair predict children’s RSA and inhibitory control - Presenting Author: Elizabeth A. Skowron, University of Oregon; Atika Khurana, University of Oregon; Lisa Kopp, Pennsylvania State University

• Physiological Interdependence and Emotion Regulation in Mother-Child Dyads - Presenting Author: Jonathan Helm, Penn State; Jonas G Miller, University of California, Davis; Sarah Kahle, Psychology/Center for Mind and Brain; Kimberly Trumbull Kendziora, American Institutes for Research; Bonnie Klimes-Dougan, University of Minnesota; Carolyn Zahn-Waxler, University of Wisconsin; Paul David Hastings, U California, Davis