Increases in maternal gentle guidance following participation in interventions for mothers and their toddlers

• In Event: Community and Clinical Perspectives on the Development of Children’s Committed Compliance to the Maternal Agenda

Abstract

Introduction: The development of toddlers’ self-regulation skills is thought to thrive in the context of maternal gentle guidance. This was assessed in the context of an RCT examining the efficacy of a multi-family Group Attachment-Based Intervention (GABI), offered three times weekly over 26 weeks, as compared to Treatment as Usual, a manualized parenting group known as Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP), offered weekly over 12 weeks. The participants in the study (n=36) were ethnically diverse mothers. At intake, children were aged 12-46 months (M=23 months; SD=8 months) and mothers were aged 17-46 years (M=29 years, SD=7 years). Children were 69% male and included in the current study contingent upon their completion of both baseline and end-of-treatment assessments and their initiation of treatment at a minimum of 12-months-old.

Method: Children and their mothers were observed in a clean-up task following a range of lab-based assessments, and among the variables scored were mothers’ use of gentle guidance.
Clean-up task observations were collected at intake and end-of-treatment.

Results: In terms of change between intake and end-of-treatment, there was an overall significant main effect of child gender, after controlling for baseline levels of global gentle guidance, F(1, 31)=9.38, p=.005; partial η2=0.23. Mothers with male children scored 0.30 higher than mothers with female children (male children=0.59, female children=0.29, with the covariate in the model for global gentle guidance at baseline being 0.47). In other words, for mothers with male children, their global gentle guidance scores increased, compared to intake and to mothers with female children, who showed on average a decrease in global gentle guidance.

Results also revealed a trend towards a significant interaction between treatment group and child gender, after controlling for baseline levels of parent gentle guidance, F(1, 31)=2.99, p=.09; partial η2=0.09. Although this interaction effect is only marginally significant, the η2 value of 0.09 indicates the size of this interaction is a small non-trivial effect. The result stems GABI, mothers with male children scored 0.14 higher than mothers with female children (GABI-male=0.55, GABI-female=0.41, with the covariate in the model for parent global gentle guidance at baseline being 0.47). In other words, GABI mothers increased in global gentle guidance with male children across treatment, but slightly decreased with female children. Within STEP, mothers with male children scored 0.47 higher than mothers with female children (STEP-male=0.64, STEP-female=0.17, with the covariate in the model for parent global gentle guidance at baseline being 0.47). In other words, STEP mothers increased in global gentle guidance with male children across treatment, but significantly decreased with female children.

Discussion: Discussion focuses on how early interventions can help mothers acquire the parenting skills to promote the development of self-regulatory skills in their toddlers, a critical marker of school-readiness. Also, the relevance of the clean-up task for measuring self-regulation skills in toddlers will be discussed.

Authors

• Audrey Kucer, The New School
  Presenting Author

• Miriam Steele, New School for Social Research
  Non-Presenting Author

• Howard Steele, New School for Social Research
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn LeNeave, New School for Social Research
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anne Murphy, Montefiore Medical Center
  Non-Presenting Author