Golding Jean, Gregory Steven, Ellis Genette, Iles-Caven Yasmin, Nowicki Stephen
Centre for Academic Child Health, Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jan 22;10:3094. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03094. eCollection 2019.
Maternal locus of control (LOC) as measured in pregnancy has been shown to be associated with parenting attitudes and behaviors as well as with children's comprehension of mathematical and scientific concepts. The present study evaluates whether the child's emergent literacy skills are similarly associated with maternal LOC: i.e., do children of prenatally externally oriented mothers perform less well on literacy tasks compared with their peers whose mothers are prenatally internally oriented. Prenatal measures collected within a United Kingdom birth cohort (ALSPAC) including a maternal LOC measure together with behavior and lifestyle details were analyzed. Later in childhood, offspring at ages 7 and 9 were tested by ALSPAC for spelling, phoneme awareness, reading comprehension, speed and accuracy. All achievement test scores showed a deficit among children of prenatally externally oriented mothers as compared to children of internally controlled women. Further analysis found that differences in diet, lifestyle and mother/child activities mediated approximately 60% of the deficit between children of external and internal mothers. A sensitivity analysis using national reading test results demonstrated similar results with these children. If further research confirms a causal relationship, programs to increase internality in adolescent girls or newly pregnant women may result in long-term benefits to their future offspring.
孕期测量的母亲控制点（LOC）已被证明与育儿态度和行为以及儿童对数学和科学概念的理解有关。本研究评估儿童的早期读写能力是否同样与母亲的控制点相关：即，产前外部导向型母亲的孩子在读写任务上的表现是否比其母亲产前内部导向型的同龄人差。对英国一个出生队列（ALSPAC）收集的产前测量数据进行了分析，其中包括母亲控制点测量以及行为和生活方式细节。在儿童后期，ALSPAC对7岁和9岁的后代进行了拼写、音素意识、阅读理解、速度和准确性测试。与内控型女性的孩子相比，所有成绩测试分数均显示产前外部导向型母亲的孩子存在缺陷。进一步分析发现，饮食、生活方式和母婴活动的差异介导了外部和内部导向型母亲的孩子之间约60%的缺陷。使用全国阅读测试结果进行的敏感性分析在这些孩子中显示了类似结果。如果进一步的研究证实了因果关系，提高青少年女孩或新怀孕女性的内控性的项目可能会给她们未来的后代带来长期益处。
