Poster #147 - Mothers’ Adverse Childhood Experiences and Sensitive Parenting: The Mediating Role of Secure Base Script Knowledge

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Given that parental sensitivity plays a critical role in shaping children’s healthy development, it is important to identify factors that interfere with the provision of sensitive care. Research has suggested that parents’ own exposure to childhood adversity (e.g., abuse, neglect, parental psychopathology) may undermine their ability to provide sensitive and responsive care to their offspring (Lomanowska, Boivin, Hertzman, & Fleming, 2017). It is critical to identify mechanisms by which adverse childhood experiences influence subsequent parenting, as these mechanisms may serve as targets for interventions that disrupt the intergenerational transmission of maltreatment. According to attachment theory, childhood experiences with primary caregivers shape one’s internal working models (Bowlby, 1982). Having recurrent experiences in which primary care figures are available, responsive, and effective enables one to develop a secure base script - a cognitive schema that outlines a sequence of events following distress (i.e., seeking support, receiving effective support, returning to exploration; Waters & Waters., 2006). In the absence of a history of sensitive care, however, an individual may fail to develop the secure base script. Failing to develop or consolidate the secure base script may, in turn, make it hard to provide sensitive care to one’s offspring (Huth-Bocks, Muzik, Beeghly, Earls, & Stacks, 2014). In this study, we examined whether mothers’ own history of childhood adversity predicted sensitive caregiving and whether this association was mediated by secure base script knowledge.

Participants included 91 mother-infant dyads. Mothers completed the Adverse Childhood Experiences questionnaire (ACE; Felitti et al., 1998) and dichotomized responses were summed to obtain an overall score of childhood adversity, out of 10. Mothers were administered a brief version of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985) and the Attachment Script Assessment (ASA; Waters & Rodrigues-Doolabh, 2001), which were both coded for secure base script knowledge (Waters, Brockmeyer, &, Crowell, 2013). Scores from the AAI and the ASA were averaged to create a composite measure of secure base script knowledge. Parental nurturance to infant distress was coded using a 5-point scale (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1999) from several video-recorded distress-eliciting tasks (e.g., arm restraint, toy removal, undressing), and parental sensitivity to non-distress and positive regard were coded from a play interaction.

Structural equation modeling was conducted in Mplus 7.11 (Muthen & Muthen, 2013) to test whether mothers’ secure base script knowledge mediated the pathway from childhood adversity to parental sensitivity (See Figure 1). Results suggested that higher childhood adversity predicted lower secure base script knowledge, which in turn predicted lower maternal sensitivity. Furthermore, there was a significant indirect effect of childhood adversity on maternal sensitivity via secure base script knowledge (See Table 1). These results indicate that one mechanism by which childhood adversity influences subsequent parenting is through secure base script knowledge, and may indicate that secure base script knowledge is a viable target of intervention for mothers with histories of adversity.

Authors

• Galia Nissim, Stony Brook University
  Presenting Author

• Suzanne Vaccaro, University of New Mexico
  Non-Presenting Author

• Allison Lazzaro, Stony Brook
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rachel Mercorella, stony brook
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christopher R. Facompré, New York University- Abu Dhabi
  Non-Presenting Author

• Theodore E. A. Waters, New York University- Abu Dhabi
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Bernard, Stony Brook University
  Non-Presenting Author