Poster #27 - Maternal Anxiety and Toddler Depressive/Anxiety Behaviors: The Direct and Moderating Role of Children's Focused Attention

• In Event: Poster Session 18

Abstract

Children of parents diagnosed with anxiety disorders are at increased risk for exhibiting elevated depression and anxiety symptoms (Kerns et al., 2017; Pereira et al., 2014). Although mood disorders have a substantial heritable basis (Meier & Deckert, 2019), some children raised by anxious parents do not develop depression/anxiety, suggesting considerable heterogeneity in the intergenerational transmission of the disorder (Ahmadzadeh et al., 2021). However, little is known about potential moderating mechanisms that can account for the individual differences in developmental pathways to mood disorders, particularly during early childhood. Attention plays a critical role in shaping trajectories of anxiety and depressive disorders by determining how individuals process information and engage with their environment (Keller, 2019). It has also been suggested that there is an overlap between the neural mechanisms underlying emotional regulatory processes and higher-order attentional processes (Bell & Wolfe, 2004). Drawing from this perspective, attention and emotion represent intertwined components of developmental psychopathology processes (Rothbart & Posner, 2006). The current study aimed to expand knowledge of the integration of cognition and emotion in anxiety and depression in early childhood. Specifically, we examined whether children’s focused attention abilities (i.e., the ability to focus attention during active engagement with a stimulus or task) can modulate the association between maternal anxiety symptoms and child anxiety and depressive behaviors in early toddlerhood.
Participants were 150 mother-child dyads (50% female) that were assessed at two time points; At 12 months of child age, mothers reported about their anxiety symptoms (BSI; Derogatis & Melisarat, 1983) and children's focused attention (ECBQ: Putnam et al., 2006). Children's focused attention was also observed and rated (Gaertner et al., 2008) from an individual play task. At 18 months of age, mothers reported about children's anxiety and depression behaviors (CBCL 1½–5; Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000).
Focused attention predicted child anxiety and depressive behaviors, with different patterns of associations between observed and reported measures of attention (see Table 1). There was no significant interaction between maternal anxiety symptoms and children's focused attention in the prediction of child anxiety/depression behaviors. However, a significant interaction was revealed between maternal anxiety symptoms and observed children's focused attention (Figure 1). The positive association between maternal anxiety symptoms and child anxiety/depression behaviors was significant only for children with average and high levels of focused attention (β =.10, p =.09; β =.67, p =.003, respectively), and not for children with low levels of focused attention (β =-.48, p =.76).
Findings from this study contribute to understanding how cognition and emotion interact in the emergence of risk for psychopathology. Early attention may confer both risk and resilience for anxiety and depressive behaviors by navigating which aspects of the environment the child will orient toward and consequently process. Children with specific attentional profiles may be more susceptible to the intergenerational transmission of anxiety.

Authors

• Alisa Egotubov, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
  Presenting Author

• Avigail Gordon Hacker, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

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