Changes in patterns of Early Mother-Child Interaction: A longitudinal study of the first 18 months of life

ObjectiveThe main objective of the present longitudinal study is to describe the progression of early adult-child interactions between the first and second years of life. Changes identified in interactions are described, focusing on both the qualitative aspects of maternal responses, as well as maternal response latency to the child's behavior using a microanalytical methodology that collected data on maternal and child behavior in real-time without losing sight of the temporal dimension.ParticipantsThis study examined 52 mother-child dyads from intact families that presented no psychological, social, or biological risk factors at 6, 12 and 18 months of age.InstrumentCITMI-R (early mother-child interaction coding system, revised edition) was used to assess early mother-infant interactions during free play sessions between mother and child the.ResultsThe results indicate that some components of maternal sensitivity improve as children progress towards the second year of life, detecting an increase in sensitive maternal behavior and a decrease in intrusive behavior in the evolutive observed period; moreover, regarding latency of maternal response, we observed that mothers of older children give more time for their children to explore, which stimulates autonomy. Finally, the implication of these results for intervention directed to optimizing early adult-child interactions are addressed.     

Teaching and learning as a bi-directional activity: investigating dyadic interactions between child teachers and child learners

Building upon Vygotsky's ideas about the shift from other- to self-regulation in the “zone of proximal development,” we study how children, when teaching a board game that they previously co-constructed with a peer to a new child, reciprocally negotiate the roles of teacher and learner. From our investigation, we find that the quality of the relationship between teacher and learner changes from one reflecting guidance to one reflecting collaboration. This collaborative model of teaching and learning differs from more traditional models by which an active adult teacher is depicted as transmitting knowledge to a relatively passive child learner. Instead, we contend and demonstrate that the practice of teaching and learning is best viewed as a bi-directional interaction that results in the cognitive growth of both teacher and learner.     

Sensory modality and stimulus control in the pigeon: Cross-species generality of single-incentive selective-association effects

In earlier studies with rats, the effectiveness of the auditory element of a tone–light discriminative stimulus was enhanced when the conditioned incentive value of the compound was negative rather than positive. The present experiment systematically replicated these results in pigeons trained to press a treadle in the presence of a tone–light compound under food-reinforcement or shock-avoidance schedules. Positive incentive value was conditioned to the compound by associating it with either food or relative safety from shock. The compound was made negative in other groups by associating it with shock or the absence of food. When tone and light were presented separately following this training, control by the auditory element was significantly enhanced in the conditions designed to make the compound negative rather than positive. The similarity of this constraint on learning in rats and pigeons suggests that it involves a fundamental attentional and incentive-motivational process with widespread species generality.     

Stimuli previously associated with reinforcement mitigate resurgence

Resurgence refers to the recurrence of an extinguished target behavior following subsequent suspension of alternative reinforcement. Delivery of reinforcers during extinction of alternative behavior has been shown to mitigate resurgence. The present experiment aimed to determine whether delivering stimuli associated with reinforcers during resurgence testing similarly mitigates resurgence. Three groups of rats pressed target levers for food according to variable‐interval 15‐s schedules during Phase 1. In Phase 2, lever pressing was extinguished, and an alternative nose‐poke response produced alternative reinforcement according to a variable‐interval 15‐s schedule. Food reinforcement was always associated with illumination of the food aperture and an audible click from the pellet dispenser during Phases 1 and 2. Phase 3 treatments differed between groups. For one group, nose poking continued to produce food and food‐correlated stimuli. Both of these consequences were suspended for a second group. Finally, nose poking produced food‐correlated stimuli but not food for a third group. Target‐lever pressing resurged in the group that received no consequences and in the group that received only food‐correlated stimuli for nose poking. Resurgence, however, was smaller for the group that received food‐correlated stimuli than for the group that received no consequences for nose poking. Target‐lever pressing did not increase between phases in the group that continued to receive food and associated stimuli. Thus, delivery of stimuli associated with food reinforcement after suspension of food reduced but did not eliminate resurgence of extinguished lever pressing. These findings contribute to potential methodologies for preventing relapse of extinguished problem behavior in clinical settings.     

How do reinforcers affect choice? Preference pulses after responses and reinforcers

In concurrent schedules, reinforcers are often followed by a brief period of heightened preference for the just‐productive alternative. Such ‘preference pulses’ may reflect local effects of reinforcers on choice. However, similar pulses may occur after nonreinforced responses, suggesting that pulses after reinforcers are partly unrelated to reinforcer effects. McLean, Grace, Pitts, and Hughes (2014) recommended subtracting preference pulses after responses from preference pulses after reinforcers, to construct residual pulses that represent only reinforcer effects. Thus, a reanalysis of existing choice data is necessary to determine whether changes in choice after reinforcers in previous experiments were actually related to reinforcers. In the present paper, we reanalyzed data from choice experiments in which reinforcers served different functions. We compared local choice, mean visit length, and visit‐length distributions after reinforcers and after nonreinforced responses. Our reanalysis demonstrated the utility of McLean et al.'s preference‐pulse correction for determining the effects of reinforcers on choice. However, visit analyses revealed that residual pulses may not accurately represent reinforcer effects, and reinforcer effects were clearer in visit analyses than in local‐choice analyses. The best way to determine the effects of reinforcers on choice may be to conduct visit analyses in addition to local‐choice analyses.     

The buffering power of overt socially supportive and unsupportive behaviors from the significant other on posttraumatic stress disorder individuals’ emotional state

Background and objectives: Social support is one of the three strongest predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the present study, we aimed to assess the buffering power of overt socially supportive and unsupportive behaviors from the significant other, in a group with PTSD and a comparison group. Design and methods: A total of 46 individuals with PTSD and 42 individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or panic disorder (PD) completed diagnostic interviews and an anxiety-oriented social interaction with a significant other. Heart rate of participants was continuously measured during this interaction and overt social behaviors from the significant other were recorded on videotape and coded using a validated system. Results: Changes in heart rate in PTSD participants correlated negatively with changes in overt socially supportive behaviors from their significant other (r from ?.36 to ?.50, p?<?.05), while changes in overt unsupportive social behaviors from their significant other did not yield any significant correlation (r from ?.01 to .05, p?>?.05). No such statistically significant association emerged in the group with OCD or PD (r from .01 to ?.27, p?>?.05). Conclusions: This study sustain the buffering power of overt supportive behaviors from the significant other on heart rate changes in PTSD.     

Parental Guidance and Children's Executive Function: Working Memory and Planning as Moderators During Joint Problem‐Solving

Cognitive aspects of children's executive function (EF) were examined as moderators of the effectiveness of parental guidance on children's learning. Thirty‐two 5‐year‐old children and their parents were observed during joint problem‐solving. Forms of guidance geared towards cognitive assistance were coded as directive or elaborative, and children's responses were recorded. Children were then assessed on an independent version of the same task. A parent‐rated composite of working memory and planning was used as a measure of EF. Directive guidance by parents was associated with more child errors during the joint activity, whereas elaborative guidance was associated with better performance. Parent‐rated EF moderated the relation, such that the relation between elaborative guidance and better performance was only significant for children with low EF. During the independent task, EF again moderated the relation between parent guidance and children's performance, such that children with low EF did worse when parents had provided more directive guidance; for children with high EF, directive guidance was associated with better independent performance. These findings suggest that the extent to which children's performance relates to different forms of parents' guidance varies, and elaborative assistance may be more helpful for children with low EF. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Emotion Regulation in At‐Risk Preschoolers: Longitudinal Associations and Influences of Maternal Histories of Risk

Emotion regulation is a key challenge of early childhood. The present study examined emotion regulation behaviour longitudinally from infancy to preschool. The continuity of emotion regulation was explored within the larger ecological context of maternal childhood histories of aggression and social withdrawal and maternal use of constructive and non‐constructive behaviours. Forty‐five mothers with childhood histories of aggression or social withdrawal from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, a prospective, longitudinal, intergenerational study, participated with their preschool children. Infants' emotion regulation behaviour was observed during interactions with their mothers when they were 5½ months of age. Emotion regulation in these same children as preschoolers was coded during an interference task using the Preschooler Self‐Regulatory Scheme. Longitudinal findings demonstrated continuity in children's use of emotion regulation behaviours from infancy to preschool. Higher maternal childhood histories of risk, specifically social withdrawal, contributed to the prediction of preschoolers' increased attention‐seeking behaviours. Mothers' use of non‐constructive verbalizations predicted more maladaptive styles of emotion regulation in their preschoolers. The findings highlight the importance of helping children develop adaptive emotion regulation skills from a young age and have implications for the design of preventive intervention programmes to help parents foster children's emotion regulation abilities. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.