Maternal Responsivity in Early Life Supports Child Physiological Regulation

• In Event: Physiological impact of parenting

Abstract

Attachment theory suggests that maternal responsivity is the key variable describing the development of attachment (Deans, 2020). Maternal responsivity includes warm, receptive behaviors that are attuned to the needs of the child. Decades of empirical investigations examining maternal responsivity demonstrate that it is a predictor of numerous positive child outcomes, such as enhanced social and cognitive competence beyond adolescence into adulthood (Bigelow et al., 2010). Maternal responsivity in infancy is also predictive of child physiological regulation, specifically, child cardiac vagal reactivity (Calkins, 2011; Perry et al., 2014), but whether such relations are still evident in early childhood is unexplored. Across development, children’s cardiac vagal tone steadily increases (Moscardino et al., 2021), and reaches adult levels around age 5 or 6 (Bornstein & Suess, 2000). The current study investigated the longitudinal effects of maternal responsivity at age 4 on child cardiac activity (at rest) and recovery (how the child recovers from stress) two years later.

We assessed maternal responsivity through observation of mother-child free play interactions (N = 77 dyads) using Keys to Interactive Parenting (KIPS; Gordon & Gordon, 2006) when children were age 4 (Mage = 4.40, range = 3.25-5.09). Physiological regulation was assessed at age 6 (Mage = 5.63 years, range = 4.92-6.33) using child cardiac vagal regulation via respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), an online biomarker for emotion dysregulation (Beauchaine, 2015) across three conditions: baseline, stress, and recovery. This method afforded investigation of resting cardiac vagal activity (baseline), cardiac vagal reactivity (autonomic regulation changes from baseline to stress) and cardiac vagal recovery (autonomic regulation changes from stress to recovery). Latent basis coefficient modeling, a type of latent growth curve model, was utilized to investigate the influence of maternal responsivity on child resting cardiac vagal activity, vagal reactivity, and vagal recovery, controlling for gender (Koenig et al., 2017). All three models demonstrated a good fit, with maternal responsivity relating to decreased child cardiac vagal reactivity (β = -.03, p = .04) and increased vagal recovery (β = .03, p = .04). Maternal responsivity did not relate to children’s resting cardiac vagal activity during the baseline or recovery condition.

Maternal responsivity might facilitate child autonomic flexibility longitudinally, supporting children’s parasympathetic adaptation during times of stress as well as recovery from stress. Recent distinctions between allostatic and homeostatic mechanisms (Quintana & Guastella, 2020) might describe maternal responsivity’s influence on child cardiac vagal reactivity and recovery but not resting cardiac vagal activity, in that responsivity might be particularly important for children’s management of allostatic load as opposed to homeostatic maintenance. Efforts to support and improve children’s autonomic regulation might usefully investigate the effects of policies that increase maternal responsivity, such as the provision of maternal social support (Taraban & Shaw, 2018), as important indirect influences on children’s physiological development.

Authors

• Mary Tarsha, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame

• Tracy Gleason, Wellesley College