Poster #77 - Parental Emotional Functioning as a Predictor of Parental Responsiveness to Child Cries in Naturalistic Settings

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Parental responses to children’s negative emotions during early childhood play an important role in children’s social and emotional competence (Eisenberg, 2020). However, parental emotional functioning (e.g., depression or distress) may cause difficulty for parents to respond to children’s negative emotions in supportive ways (Dix, 1991). Prior studies have primarily used self-reports and brief, structured observations in the home or laboratory to assess parental responsiveness to children’s distress, which may not give us an adequate picture of how parents respond to children across a broad range of contexts or in the presence of other environmental distractions. The use of home audio recordings provides organic data collected throughout a family’s daily routine in naturalistic settings (Stoop & Cole, 2022). We will examine the extent to which maternal and paternal emotional functioning predicts the quality of parental responsiveness to children’s cries using recorded audio data collected in the participant’s homes. We will look at both general emotional functioning (i.e., depression) and specific distress experienced in the context of the children’s negative emotions. We hypothesize that parents who report greater depression and distress are less likely to respond to children’s cries in a supportive manner, particularly during more intense cry episodes which may elicit greater parental stress.

Participants (N=58, 27 girls, 46% White Non-Hispanic) were 3–5-year-old children and their parents. Parental depression was measured using the Center for Epidemiological Study- Depression Scale and parental distress was measured using the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale. Children were asked to wear the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) recording device for a total of 16 hours while going about their daily routines in their home environment. LENA uses algorithms to detect child cries. Ten cry episodes for each child will be randomly selected and coded for child cry intensity and parental responsiveness (i.e., emotional tone, content, timing, and appropriateness of the response given the context and the child’s developmental level). Mothers and fathers will be rated separately. Coding will be completed by December 2022.

Data will be analyzed using multilevel models. The within-person (i.e., relative to one’s own mean) association between child cry intensity and parental responsiveness in each cry episode will first be tested at level 1 (see Figure 1). Parent depression, parent distress, and other covariates will then be added as between-person (level 2) moderators of this association. Significant interactions will be probed at one standard deviation above and below the mean of parent depression/distress. We will also test associations between parent emotional functioning and parental responsiveness averaged across all cry episodes at level 2. Mothers and fathers will be tested in separate models to minimize the number of parameters in a model.

By examining naturalistic temporal sequences of child cries and parental responsiveness in the home, findings from this study can potentially enhance our understanding of how parent emotional functioning contributes to everyday interactions. Findings can also inform prevention and intervention programs to help parents better manage distress in moments when their children display heightened negative emotions.

Authors

• Kellsie Lynn Prather, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author

• Niyantri Ravindran, University of Georgia