Consequences of maternal childhood maltreatment on infant and child socio-cognitive development in Uganda

• In Event: Refugee caregiver-child mental health: Pathways to promote well-being across migration

Abstract

Women growing up in low- and middle-income countries have a high risk to experience interpersonal adversities such as childhood maltreatment and intimate partner violence (WHO, 2013). Not only do these maternal adversities affect the exposed individuals but they may also have consequences for their offspring, who are at increased risk of emotion regulation difficulties and deficiencies in socio-cognitive development. This longitudinal study investigates the consequences of maternal childhood maltreatment on early infant and child development in a sample of N = 150 mothers and their offspring in rural and urban Uganda. Maternal depressive symptomatology and predicable parenting have been assessed as potential mechanisms of intergenerational transmission. Mothers visited mobile laboratories at the ages of 8 and 36 months of age. At the first assessment (T1), mother’s early trauma and depressive symptoms were assessed via the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, respectively. Infants’ emotional reactivity was measured via behavioral coding derived from their joint participation in the standardized procedure (Still Face Paradigm) and was assessed as an integrated measure that included duration, intensity, and latency to negative affect. Findings revealed that greater early trauma exposure was strongly associated with higher depression scores and lower infant reactivity. However, a bootstrapping-based mediation analysis showed that depressive symptomatology did not mediate the effects of maternal childhood maltreatment on infants’ emotional reactivity. Ongoing analyses will further include maternal predictability (Entropy rate assessed in a free play session) as a potential mechanism of intergenerational transmission. At the second assessment (T2), we assess the same measures from T1, with an age-adapted version of the still face paradigm, as well as infants’ socio-cognitive development using the INTER-NDA Early Child Development scale. We will present results with regard to the hypothesis that maternal childhood maltreatment has long term consequences for children’s emotional reactivity and socio-cognitive development in the third year of life. These effects may be mediated by maternal predictability as an important mechanism for intergenerational transmission of adverse experiences. Our study adds a crucial piece of puzzle to our growing understanding of the intergenerational transmission of adverse experience, first, by studying a sample with high prevalence of maternal childhood maltreatment that has rarely been investigated, and second, by investigating underlying mechanisms of intergenerational transmission in the early mother-child interaction.

Authors

• Moritz Köster, Freie Universität Berlin
  Presenting Author

• Herbert Ainamani, Kabale University

• Eunice Murokore, Kabale University

• Philipp Töpfer, Universität Greifswald

• Eeva Holmberg

• María José Lobeda-Garzón, Humbolt University

• Michelle Fernandez, Oxford University

• Julian Busch, Ruhr-Universität Bochum

• Riikka Korja, University of Turku