Poster #136 - History of mother- and father-child mutuality confers particular benefits on children with high inattentive/hyperactive traits

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

How the interplay between children’s temperament and parenting they receive influences developmental trajectories remains a key question in developmental psychology and psychopathology. Large literature on Temperament x Environment interactions has elucidated temperament as a factor that moderates links between child experiences in early relationships with parents and future developmental outcomes (e.g., Rothbart & Bates, 2006). That work has shown that children with difficult temperaments can be particularly negatively impacted by suboptimal parenting. Research inspired by differential-susceptibility models (Belsky & Pluess, 2009) has further shown that such children may be impacted “for better or worse” by parenting: Whereas negatively affected by poor parenting, they also stand to benefit substantially from positive, high quality care (Gallitto, 2015).

Most of this research examines children’s difficult temperament (negative emotionality, anger proneness) as moderators of parenting-outcomes links. With a few exceptions (Kiff, Lengua, & Zalewski, 2011), surprisingly few studies have investigated inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity as potential moderators. However, research on children with elevated symptoms of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder has shown that they substantially benefitted (in terms of ratings of overall functioning level) from positive parenting, observed as mother-child mutual synchrony during 10 min of interaction (Healey, Gopin, Grossman, Campbell, & Halperin, 2010). Thus, inattentive, hyperactive traits may be promising candidates for investigations of Temperament x Environment interactions.

Our longitudinal investigation of 102 children, mothers, and fathers substantially extends the study by Healey et al. (2010). Children in our community sample ranged broadly in inattentive, impulsive, and hyperactive traits (rated by parents at age 5½). Parent-child dyadic positive mutuality was averaged across 4 observations of interactions, totaling 250 min for each parent-child dyad between ages 2 and 5½. Child outcomes, both positive (observed committed compliance with and eager imitation of the parent) and negative (parent-rated aggression toward peers) were assessed at age 6½. All data were collected for both mother- and father-child dyads.

Multiple regressions (covarying earlier outcome measures) indicated significant interactions between mutuality and inattentive/hyperactive traits for child committed compliance in mother- and father-child dyads, eager imitation in father-child dyads, and aggression in mother-child dyads. Simple slopes probing those effects (Aiken & West, 1991) revealed that, as expected, for children with relatively higher scores on inattentive/hyperactive traits, but not the ones with lower scores, variation in parent-child mutuality significantly predicted future outcomes (values for +1 SD above the mean first, -1 SD next): committed compliance with mothers, B = .46, SE = .08, p < .001; B = .04, SE = .10, ns, with fathers, B = .50, SE = .12, p < .001; B = -.05, SE =.13, ns; eager imitation of fathers, B = .33, SE = .09, p < .001; B = .04, SE = .10, ns; mother-rated aggression, B = -.13, SE = .03, p < .001; B = -.02, SE = .04, ns.

Results highlight a promising temperament characteristic for research on Temperament x Environment interactions, and a dimension of parenting to target in parenting interventions for children at risk for inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity (Charach et al., 2013).

Authors

• Meaghan Marie Flynn, The University of Iowa
  Presenting Author

• Lea Joann Boldt, University of Iowa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nicole Carolyne Yeager, University of Iowa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Robin Jaelesa Campbell, University of Iowa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Grazyna Kochanska, The University of Iowa
  Non-Presenting Author