Parent-toddler Interactions Research Articles

The role of parental self-regulation and household chaos in parent-toddler interactions: A time-series study.

Various studies have reported that parental self-regulation is inversely related to negative parenting practices, especially in relatively calm households. These studies have focused on general tendencies of parents over longer periods of time. In the current time-series study, we extended previous work by focusing on the moment-to-moment processes in parent-child interactions that may explain associations between parental self-regulation, household chaos, and negative parenting practices. In a sample of 62 parent-toddler dyads (83.87% mothers), we tested whether observed contingent negative responses to child noncompliance (i.e., reactive negative parenting) could be predicted by the interaction between parental self-regulation and household chaos. Additionally, we examined whether two indicators of parental self-regulation, self-reported effortful control and task-based executive functioning, had similar associations with reactive negative parenting. Reactive negative parenting was assessed during clean up and was calculated as parents' propensity to show negative parenting practices immediately after their child showed noncompliance. We found that lower parental self-regulation predicted more reactive negative parenting practices in moderately chaotic households. Associations were similar regardless of whether self-regulation was operationalized as effortful control or executive functioning. The findings demonstrate that less regulated parents may benefit from a home situation that is tidy, calm, and characterized by routine in order to remain neutral in situations in which their toddler is noncompliant. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Communicative functions of parents' child-directed speech across dyadic and triadic contexts.

This study examined the roles of parental gender and context in the communicative functions of parents' child-directed speech. Seventy three families with toddlers participated in the study. Dyadic and triadic parent-toddler interactions were videotaped during structured play activities. Results indicated context-dependent variability in parents' facilitative speech and gentle guidance. Parental gender effects were observed in parents' directive speech but no gender or contextual effects were observed in parents' referential speech. Results suggest the need for a closer examination of parental gender and contextual factors related to parents' speech functions.

Differential responses to child communicative behavior of parents of toddlers with ASD.

The quality of parent verbal input-diverse vocabulary that is well-matched to the child's developmental level within interactions that are responsive to their interests-has been found to positively impact child language skills. For typically developing (TD) children, there is evidence that more advanced linguistic and social development differentially elicits higher quality parent input, suggesting a bidirectional relationship between parent and child. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if toddlers with ASD also differentially elicit parental verbal input by (1) analyzing the quality of parent input to the communicative behavior of their toddlers with ASD, (2) examining if parents respond differentially to more advanced toddler communicative behavior, as measured by the coordination of multiple communicative behaviors, and (3) exploring the relationship between parental responsiveness to child communicative behaviors and change in child communication and social skills. Participants were 77 toddlers with ASD age 18-39 months and a parent who participated in a larger RCT. Ten-minute parent-toddler interactions were recorded prior to a 12-week intervention. Parent response to child communicative behaviors was coded following each child communicative behavior as no acknowledgment, responsive, directive, or nonverbal acknowledgment. Parent number of different words and difference between parent and child MLU in words were calculated separately for responsive and directive parent utterances. Child growth in language and social skills was measured using the Vineland II Communication and Socialization domain scores, respectively. (1) Parents were largely responsive to their toddler's communication. When being responsive (as opposed to directive), parents used a greater number of different words within utterances that were well-matched to child language; (2) when toddlers coordinated communicative behaviors (versus producing an isolated communicative behavior), parents were more likely to respond and their replies were more likely to be responsive; and (3) parent responsiveness to child coordinated communication was significantly correlated with change in Vineland II Socialization but not Communication. A unique role of gaze coordinated child communication in eliciting responsive parental behaviors and improving growth in child social skills emerged. Our results support a bidirectional process between responsive parent verbal input and the social development of toddlers with ASD, with less sophisticated child communicative behaviors eliciting lower quality parent input.Implications: Our findings highlight the critical role of early parent-mediated intervention for children with ASD generally, and to enhance eye gaze through parent responsivity more specifically.

Supplemental Material for The Role of Parental Self-Regulation and Household Chaos in Parent-Toddler Interactions: A Time-Series Study

Supplemental Material for The Role of Parental Self-Regulation and Household Chaos in Parent-Toddler Interactions: A Time-Series Study

Autism Adversely Affects Auditory Joint Engagement During Parent-toddler Interactions.

This study documents the early adverse effects of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) on auditory joint engagement-the sharing of sounds during interactions. A total of 141 toddlers (49 typically developing [TD], 46 with ASD, and 46 with non-ASD developmental disorders [DD]; average age 22.6 months) were observed during a semi-naturalistic play session with a parent. Reactions to four types of sounds-speech about the child, instrumental music, animal calls, and mechanical noises-were observed before and as parents tried to scaffold joint engagement with the sound. Toddlers with ASD usually appeared aware of a new sound, often alerting to and orienting toward it. But compared to TD toddlers and toddlers with DD, they alerted and oriented less often to speech, a difference not found with the other sounds. Furthermore, toddlers with ASD were far less likely to spontaneously try to share the sound with the parents and to engage with the parent and the sound when parents tried to share it with them. These findings reveal how ASD can have significant effects on shared experiences with nonvisible targets in the environment that attract toddlers' attention. Future studies should address the association between auditory joint engagement difficulties and variations in multimodal joint engagement, sensory profiles, and ASD severity and the reciprocal influence over time of auditory joint engagement experience and language development. LAY SUMMARY: Like most toddlers, toddlers with autism spectrum disorder often alert when they hear sounds like a cat's meow or a train's rumble. But they are less likely to alert when they hear their own name, and they are far less likely to share new sounds with their parents. These findings raise important questions about how toddlers with autism spectrum disorder experience their everyday auditory world, including how they share it with parents who can enrich this experience.

Co-development of emotion regulation: shifting from self-focused to child-focused perezhivanie in everyday parent-toddler dramatic collisions

ABSTRACT Early development of emotion regulation plays a vital role in children’s school readiness and later academic success. Most studies on toddlers’ emotion regulation are laboratory-based and correlational research. Little attention has been paid to their development of emotion regulation in daily parent-toddler interactions in naturalistic contexts. Inspired by Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, this study sought to examine how everyday parent-toddler interactions support toddlers’ development of emotion regulation. Participants were a Chinese family with a two-year-old toddler girl. The data collected by digital video observations and the mother’s diary over a year suggested that mother’s changing from the self-focused to the child-focused perezhivanie contributed to the co-development of emotion regulation in both the mother and the toddler. It is argued that adults’ child-focused perezhivanie in everyday dramatic collisions plays an essential role in the co-development of emotion regulation in both adults and toddlers. Practical recommendations are provided in the conclusion.

What leads to coordinated attention in parent-toddler interactions? Children's hearing status matters.

Coordinated attention between children and their parents plays an important role in their social, language, and cognitive development. The current study used head-mounted eye-trackers to investigate the effects of children's prelingual hearing loss on how they achieve coordinated attention with their hearing parents during free-flowing object play. We found that toddlers with hearing loss (age: 24-37months) had similar overall gaze patterns (e.g., gaze length and proportion of face looking) as their normal-hearing peers. In addition, children's hearing status did not affect how likely parents and children attended to the same object at the same time during play. However, when following parents' attention, children with hearing loss used both parents' gaze directions and hand actions as cues, whereas children with normal hearing mainly relied on parents' hand actions. The diversity of pathways leading to coordinated attention suggests the flexibility and robustness of developing systems in using multiple pathways to achieve the same functional end.

Parent-Toddler Interactions when Reading Tablets vs. Print Books

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that parents interact with children using digital devices such as smartphones and tablets, but the

Crying babies, empathic toddlers, responsive mothers and fathers: Exploring parent-toddler interactions in an empathy paradigm

The ability to display caring responses to another child’s distress is a key aspect of early empathy that is facilitated by parental socialization. However, existing studies typically involve lab settings and focus on toddlers’ unsupported responses to adult simulations of distress, raising questions about their ecological validity. Framed within the New Fathers and Mothers Study, the current study involved 156 British toddlers (Mage = 24.35 months, SD = 0.73) who were filmed at home with either their mother or father (87 mothers and 69 fathers) in a novel paradigm involving a lifelike crying baby doll. Capitalizing on the inclusion of both fathers and mothers, a key question concerned effects of parent–toddler dyad gender composition on both global ratings of toddlers’ displays of empathic concern and more specific indicators, including toddlers’ attentional, emotional, and behavioral responses. Whereas parental responses did not differ by either child or parent gender and appeared to be closely attuned to child behavior, toddlers’ responses showed effects of both (a) child gender, evident in higher rates of emotion labeling in girls than in boys (even when controlling for language ability), and (b) parent gender, evident in higher levels of empathic concern for girls observed with fathers than for those observed with mothers. These findings are discussed within the context of empathy development and parental socialization.

A replicable, low-burden mechanism for observing, recording, and analysing mother-child interaction in population research.

There is growing evidence that specific styles of parent-child interaction benefit child development, particularly child language development. Direct observational techniques help clarify the behaviours and styles within parent-child interactions that may influence child language outcomes; however, these techniques tend to be labour-intensive and costly. We report on the development of a replicable, low-burden mechanism for observing and coding specific maternal linguistic behaviours in a population-based cohort of 2-year-olds. The coding scheme was developed as part of a prospective, longitudinal study examining the associations between maternal responsive behaviours and child language outcomes in slow-to-talk toddlers. In the first phase of the study, three coding systems were tested by coding five sample parent-toddler interactions and then comparing them based on (a) the ease of method and thus likely intrarater and interrater reliability and (b) the number of data points. The second phase was to demonstrate how the chosen method could be used in practice with a large at-risk group of toddlers. Of the three coding systems explored, the Observer® XT software was selected for ease of use and because detailed coding of free-play videos could be achieved in close to real time. Intrarater and interrater reliability were established in 251 mother-child free-play videos, producing high intraclass correlation coefficients of 0.95 to 0.99 for the six behaviours. The study provides evidence that numerous parent-child interactions can be rigourously yet efficiently coded without substantial information loss. The observational mechanism in the current study has been fully developed and is shown to be feasible for research purposes focusing on parent-toddler interactions. However, further testing of the observational mechanism is required to examine whether the same results could be produced if coding was conducted "live" and for shorter duration thereby making it readily useable for clinicians.

Social and Instrumental Interaction Between Parents and Their Toddlers With Autism: A Qualitative Analysis

A qualitative study of three parents and their toddlers with autism was conducted to investigate the communicative functions underlying parent–toddler interactions and how the instrumental or social nature of one partner’s actions influenced the other’s engagement. Parent–child interaction videos collected from a separate intervention study were transcribed with thick description, coded for literal and inferential meaning by independent coders, and analyzed for emergent themes following an iterative process of code categorization. Themes converged around the partner as instrument, attempted but missed social connections, and congruent social engagement. A complementary interactional sequential analysis revealed that communicative functions of initiating partners were largely mirrored in their partners’ responding actions, suggesting that actively supporting parents to interact with their toddlers socially, rather than prescriptively or instrumentally, may be a potent intervention strategy to address the core social communication challenge in autism during the formative early developmental period.

Emotion Regulation, Harsh Parenting, and Teacher Sensitivity Among Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Toddlers in Child Care

ABSTRACTResearch Findings: This study examined the transactional nature of harsh parenting and emotion regulation across toddlerhood, including the moderating role of teacher sensitivity in child care. Secondary data analyses were conducted with a subsample of families from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project who participated in center-based child care. Autoregressive cross-lagged path models were used to examine stability and transactional associations between observations of mothers’ harsh parenting behaviors and observers’ ratings of toddler emotion regulation at 14, 24, and 36 months. Teacher sensitivity was observed in children’s child care classrooms and was hypothesized to attenuate the negative impact of harsh parenting on subsequent emotion regulation. Results suggested that poorer emotion regulation and increased harsh parenting at 14 months were particularly salient in setting the stage for worse parent and toddler outcomes at 36 months. Teacher sensitivity was not a significant protective factor. Practice or Policy: Results are discussed in terms of the importance of early parent–toddler interactions that match the developing regulatory needs of young toddlers as well as considering how teacher sensitivity is conceptualized and measured so programs such as Early Head Start can best meet the needs of socioeconomically disadvantaged parents and toddlers.

The Multisensory Nature of Verbal Discourse in Parent–Toddler Interactions

ABSTRACTToddlers learn object names in sensory rich contexts. Many argue that this multisensory experience facilitates learning. Here, we examine how toddlers’ multisensory experience is linked to another aspect of their experience associated with better learning: the temporally extended nature of verbal discourse. We observed parent–toddler dyads as they played with, and as parents talked about, a set of objects. Analyses revealed links between the multisensory and extended nature of speech, highlighting inter-connections and redundancies in the environment. We discuss the implications of these results for our understanding of early discourse, multisensory communication, and how the learning environment shapes language development.

Inverse Correlation of Parental Oxytocin Levels with Autonomy Support in Toddlers

Oxytocin (OT) has a positive effect on the amount of affectionate and stimulatory involvement parents have with their infants. However, the association between OT and parenting toddlers is unclear in relation to a parenting approach that aims to develop and support child autonomy. Thus, we hypothesized that parental OT might be inversely correlated with parenting that supports autonomy in toddlers. We recruited a convenience sample of 50 women (age range 24–44) and 30 men (age range 31–42) in Japan via community sampling and obtained urine samples to measure OT levels. The Interaction Rating Scale, which evaluates the social competence of children and the parenting skills of caregivers, including autonomy support, was used. Multiple regression analysis that adjusted for covariates (age, number of children, self-rated health, and education) was performed to evaluate the association between OT and parent–toddler interactions. Maternal OT levels were inversely correlated with children’s empathy and mothers’ respect for autonomy and responsiveness development (p < 0.05). No association between paternal OT levels and father–toddler interactions was found. Maternal OT level is inversely associated with autonomy support for toddlers, but the same is not true for fathers. Further investigation is necessary to determine the causality between OT levels and children’s social competence as well as parental behaviors towards toddlers.

Beyond Compliance: Mother–Child Joint Action During a “Do” Task

Much of the literature on parent-toddler interactions does not account for the lack of independence in data. This investigation used a theory and method appropriate for examining the moment-to-moment patterns of joint actions between mothers and toddlers during a “do” task. Using contextual action theory to guide a mixture of methods, we observed and described the joint goal-directed series of actions of mothers and their toddlers as well as mothers’ intentions, meanings, and emotions they ascribed to their actions. Additionally, the associations between the patterns of joint mother-toddler actions and children’s negative emotionality were examined. Thirty mothers and their children participated in the study. Data collection included video-recorded activity, video recall interviews, and self-report questionnaires. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data revealed that (a) children were mostly engaged in the task alongside with their mothers’ on-going involvement; (b) mothers attributed a range of meanings to their interactions with their children; and (c) mothers’ perceptions of their toddlers’ dimensions of emotional negativity were associated with the organization of dyads’ joint goal directed actions—both when children were engaged in the task or self-focused.

Mothers' and Fathers' Parenting Quality and Toddlers' Interactive Behaviours in Dyadic and Triadic Family Contexts

AbstractBased on a family systems perspective, this research examined the role of parental gender and family play context in parent–toddler interactions and how behaviours of family members influence each other. Sixty‐seven mostly White, middle‐class families consisting of a mother, father and toddler were videotaped in three separate sessions: mother–child, father–child and both parents–child at a university laboratory setting. The results indicated that there were significant main effects of both parent gender (mother versus father) and context (dyadic versus triadic) on parents' positive and negative parenting and children's engagement and negativity toward parents. Higher levels of mutual engagement between mothers and toddlers were associated with lower levels of fathers' positive parenting and children's engagement with fathers, when moving from the dyadic to the triadic play context. However, fathers' mutual engagement with toddlers was not associated with mothers' parenting quality and child interactive behaviours with mothers. There were also interaction effects of parent gender and context on parents' negative parenting and children's engagement and negativity toward parents. This study adds unique insights to the differences and similarities of parent–child dyadic and triadic interactions during toddlerhood. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley &amp; Sons, Ltd.

Fathers' and mothers' cognitive stimulation in early play with toddlers: Predictors of 5th grade reading and math

Developmental support in early parent-infant interactions has been shown to predict children's early development and later academic success, but the long-term combined impacts of maternal and paternal interactions are rarely examined. For 229 low-income children in the US Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project, parent-toddler interactions at age 2, observed separately with fathers and mothers, were examined in relation to child outcomes at age 3 and 5th grade. In families with resident biological fathers, both mother and father cognitive stimulation independently predicted 5th grade math and reading, over and above program impacts and child gender. In other families, only mother cognitive stimulation predicted later child outcomes, even if fathers were involved in children's lives. Adding early developmental indicators to the model showed that the contributions of mothers' early cognitive stimulation on children's later academic skills were significantly mediated by children's early development ...

Toddler Emotion Regulation with Mothers and Fathers: Temporal Associations Between Negative Affect and Behavioral Strategies.

The present study investigated temporal associations between putative emotion regulation strategies and negative affect in 20-month-old toddlers. Toddlers' parent-focused, self-distraction, and toy-focused strategies, as well as negative affect, were rated on a second-by-second basis during laboratory parent-toddler interactions. Longitudinal mixed-effects models were conducted to determine the degree to which behavioral strategy use predicts subsequent negative affect and negative affect predicts subsequent strategy use. Results with mother-toddler and father-toddler dyads indicated that parent-focused strategies with an unresponsive parent were followed by increases in negative affect, whereas toy-focused strategies were followed by decreases in negative affect. Results also indicated that toddler negative affect serves to regulate behavioral strategy use within both parent contexts.

Early antecedents of childhood impulsivity: The role of parent-child interaction, cognitive competence, and temperament

This prospective longitudinal investigation examined early mother-child interaction as a predictor of children's later self-control capabilities. Multimethod assessments of mother-child relationships, primarily focused on observed relationship qualities in the home, were conducted during the first 2 years and related to children's later impulse control capabilities. Child cognitive competence and temperament assessed during the 2nd year were also related to later impulsivity. Follow-up assessments of children's impulsivity were conducted at age 6 (N = 79), using a variety of laboratory measures. Findings indicated that responsive, cognitively stimulating parent-toddler interactions in the 2nd year modestly predicted later measures of cognitive nonimpulsivity and ability to delay gratification. Security of mother-infant attachment predicted the same outcomes, but only for boys and not for girls. Child cognitive competence in the 2nd year also consistently predicted children's later impulse control capabilities, although this was not true for measures of child temperament. Overall, the findings support a multidimensional and developmental conceptualization of the early antecedents of childhood impulsivity.