Poster #100 - Neonatal Risk, Maternal Attention Directing and Infants’ Joint Attention: Moderation by Stressful Contexts

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Neonatal risk factors (e.g., premature birth, low birthweight, medical complications) have been associated with atypical development in various areas of social communication including joint attention (Zmyj, et al., 2017). Joint attention (JA), which refers to the ability to coordinate attention with another person and additional objects or events (Tomasello & Farrar, 1986), is considered a developmental milestone that is critical for children’s language skills and adaptive social functioning (Brooks & Meltzoff, 2015). Thus, there is considerable impetus for better understanding the mechanisms by which neonatal risk is associated with JA skills. In line with theoretical frameworks that highlight the reciprocal links between children and their caregiving environment in the course of development (Sameroff, 2010), the current study examined whether maternal attention directing strategies mediate the link between neonatal risk and JA behaviors, and whether stressful contexts (i.e., maternal anxiety symptoms and household chaos) moderate this hypothesized mediational chain (Figure 1).
Participants were 183 mothers their infants (50% female) born at a wide range of gestational ages (28-42 weeks) and birth weights (996 to 4316 grams). Neonatal risk factor scores were calculated based on infants’ medical risk level (NBRS; Brazy et al., 1991), gestational age and birthweight. At 6 months of infants’ age (corrected for prematurity), maternal sensitive attention directing strategies (ADS) were rated from a videotaped mother-child free play interaction. Sensitive ADS refer to the use of strategies that identify the infant’s focus of attention and optimal level of arousal to facilitate sustained attentional engagement. Additionally, mothers reported about their anxiety symptoms (Spielberger et al., 1970), and both parents reported about levels of household chaos (CHAOS; Matheny et al., 1995). Infants’ JA behaviors (RJA; responding to joint attention, IJA; initiating joint attention) were assessed at age 12 months using a structured observational task (ESCS; Mundy et al., 2003).
Maternal sensitive ADS did not mediate the link between neonatal risk and infants’ JA. However, a moderated-mediation analysis (Hayes, 2013) revealed a conditional indirect effect: maternal sensitive ADS mediated the link between neonatal risk and infants’ RJA behaviors only when maternal anxiety levels were high and household chaos was low (Table 1). Simple slopes analyses indicated that neonatal risk was related to less sensitive maternal ADS only when maternal anxiety was high (+1SD; b=.28, p=.01), but not when anxiety symptoms were low (-1SD; b=-.04, p=.17). Moreover, sensitive ADS were positively related to infants’ RJA behavior only when household chaos was low (b=.13, p =.01), but not when chaos was high (b=-.03, p=.51). No mediation or moderated-mediation effects were found in predicting infants’ IJA behaviors.
These finding highlight the complex nature of the links between infants’ early biological risk and caregiving environments in the development of basic social communication skills. Elevated levels of anxiety symptoms seem to impede on mothers’ ability to sensitively direct infants’ focus of attention in the context of heightened neonatal risk. Moreover, highly chaotic household environments hinder infants’ ability to benefit from sensitive ADS in the development of JA skills.

Authors

• Alisa Egotubov, Ben Gurion university
  Presenting Author

• Naama Atzaba-Poria, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gal Meiri, Ben Gurion university of the Negev
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kyla Marks, Ben Gurion university
  Non-Presenting Author

• Noa Gueron-Sela, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
  Non-Presenting Author