Poster #142 - Patterns of Growth in Executive Functioning: Contributions of Mother-Child Attachment Security and Maternal Autonomy Support.

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Executive functioning (EF) refers to higher-order cognitive processes serving the conscious, goal-directed control of thought, emotion and behavior (Zelazo & Carlson, 2012). A large body of research suggests that EF is crucial to children’s daily functioning and success in school (Shonkoff et al., 2011). Yet, few longitudinal studies have examined developmental patterns of change in EF during school years and their predictors (Clark et al., 2013). However, a large body of research suggests that different aspects of mother-child relationships predict child EF at different ages, notably maternal autonomy support (encouraging children’s independent problem-solving and choices; Grolnick & Ryan, 1989) and attachment security to primary caregivers (Valcan et al., 2017). Accordingly, the aim of this multi-wave study was to investigate the predictive roles of mother-child attachment security and maternal autonomy support in the growth patterns of child EF at school age.

102 mother-child dyads (42 boys and 60 girls) participated in six home visits over nine years. Mother-child attachment security was assessed at 15 months and 2 years using the Attachment Behavior Q-Sort (Waters & Deane, 1985) based on observations conducted throughout 90-minute home visits. Maternal autonomy support was assessed at 15 months and 3 years using Whipple and colleagues’ (2011) coding system during a 10-minute mother-child problem-solving sequence and a clean-up task, respectively. All measures were rated by independent teams of trained assistants with good inter-rater reliability (ICC = .70 to .93). To produce optimally reliable indices, scores for both attachment security and maternal autonomy support were averaged across the two timepoints. Child EF was assessed yearly from ages 8 to 10 (in Grades 2 to 4) with three tasks capturing working memory, cognitive flexibility and planning: Backward Digit Span (Carlson et al., 2002), Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS; Zelazo, 2006), and the Tower subscale of the NEPSY battery (Korkman et al., 1998).

To predict patterns of change in child EF, growth curves were fitted in Mplus 7.4 using a multilevel modeling framework. Results indicated that mother-child attachment security was persistently (i.e., no interaction with time) and uniquely (i.e., over and above maternal autonomy support) associated with higher scores on the Backward Digit Span task (B = 1.46; p < .05) and the NEPSY Tower (B = 2.30; p = .05), and with lower reaction times on the DCCS (B = -.49; p < .01). Maternal autonomy support was uniquely associated with better initial performance on the NEPSY Tower (B = .61; p < .05). The significant unique association between maternal autonomy support and the rate of change in NEPSY performance (B = -.42; p < .01) suggests, however, a decreasing positive effect with age.

In line with previous studies (Camerota et al., 2015; Matte-Gagné et al., 2017), these results suggest that the quality of early mother-child attachment relationships sets children on an EF developmental trajectory that results in persistent disparities over time. They also highlight the importance of supporting children’s autonomy to foster the initial development of more complex EF abilities, such as planning assessed by the NEPSY Tower.

Authors

• Sophie Regueiro, University of Montreal
  Presenting Author

• Célia Matte-Gagné, Laval University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Annie Bernier, University of Montreal
  Non-Presenting Author