Supplemental Material for Maternal Depressive Symptoms and the Growth of Child Executive Function: Mediation by Maternal Sensitivity

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 147-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Pereira ◽  
Jaclyn A. Ludmer ◽  
Andrea Gonzalez ◽  
Leslie Atkinson

This study examined maternal depressive symptoms, social support, parenting, and adult attachment as mediators explaining the relation between maternal childhood maltreatment and child behavior in offspring. We assessed a community sample of 96 mother–child dyads. At child age 16 months, mothers self-reported maltreatment history, adult attachment, depressive symptoms, and social support, and maternal sensitivity was assessed via 2 hr of direct behavioral observation. Maternal reports of child behavior were collected at 5 years. Single and parallel mediation models were constructed. Only maternal depressive symptoms mediated the relation between maternal maltreatment history and children’s internalizing problems. Maternal sensitivity emerged as a suppressor variable. With respect to the relation between maternal maltreatment history and children’s externalizing problems, when entered singly, maternal depressive symptoms, social support, and avoidant attachment emerged as mediators. When examined in parallel, only maternal depressive symptoms and avoidant attachment accounted for unique mediating variance. Findings have implications with respect to important maternal factors that might be targeted to reduce the probability of maladaptive child behavior.


2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
SUSAN B. CAMPBELL ◽  
CELIA A. BROWNELL ◽  
ANNE HUNGERFORD ◽  
SUSAN J. SPIEKER ◽  
ROLI MOHAN ◽  
...  

2016 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Conradt ◽  
Katheleen Hawes ◽  
Dylan Guerin ◽  
David A. Armstrong ◽  
Carmen J. Marsit ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Antonia Muzard ◽  
Marcia Olhaberry ◽  
Nina Immel ◽  
Javier Moran-Kneer

In studies of maternal sensitivity, the influence of mothers’ depressive symptomatology has been consistently highlighted. Additionally, the relevance of both maternal and paternal sensitive responses to children’s development has been recognized. However, literature regarding the dynamics of the mother-father-toddler triad is scarce. This is particularly true when understanding how parental sensitivity may be bidirectionally shaped by both parents’ (i.e., mothers’ and fathers’ depressive symptomatology) and children’s characteristics (i.e., age). Hence, the present study aims to describe and analyse the associations between parental depression, paternal sensitivity and children’s socioemotional difficulties and age with mothers’ sensitive responses to highlight the appropriateness of considering fathers’ depressive symptoms and sensitivity to better understand the impact of maternal depressive symptomatology on mothers’ sensitivity. The participants included 80 Chilean mother-father-child triads in which all children were between 1 and 3 years of age and presented some degree of socioemotional difficulty. The results reveal no differences in maternal and paternal sensitivity or higher depressive symptomatology in mothers than in fathers. Additionally, while mothers’ depression was significantly associated with their sensitivity, this was not the case for fathers. Paternal depressive symptomatology was associated with the mother’s depression. Finally, paternal sensitivity emerged as a mediator between maternal depressive symptoms and sensitivity. This result calls attention to the use of paternal variables to understand how maternal depression impacts mothers’ sensitivity and to thus develop appropriate interventions that expand the scope of such impacts from the dyad to the triad.


2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 333-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eszter Székely ◽  
Nicole Lucassen ◽  
Henning Tiemeier ◽  
Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg ◽  
Marinus H. Van Ijzendoorn ◽  
...  

AbstractA vast body of literature shows that maternal depression has long-term adverse consequences for children. However, only very few studies have documented the effect of maternal depression on children's ability to process emotional expressions and even fewer incorporated measures of observed maternal sensitivity to further tease apart whether it is the symptoms per se or the associated impact via maternal sensitivity that affects children's developing emotion-processing abilities. In a large community sample of Dutch preschoolers (N = 770), we examined independent and mediated effects of maternal depressive symptoms and sensitivity on children's ability to recognize emotional expressions using a nonverbal and a verbal task paradigm. Maternal depressive symptoms predicted less accurate emotion labeling in children, while maternal sensitivity was associated with more accurate emotion matching, especially for sadness and anger. Maternal sensitivity did not mediate the observed associations between mothers’ depressive symptoms and children's emotion recognition, and effects were similar for boys and girls. Given that maternal depressive symptoms and sensitivity affected nonoverlapping areas of young children's emotion recognition, prevention and intervention efforts should focus on both alleviating maternal depressive symptoms and improving maternal sensitivity at the same time in order to maximize benefit.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document