Malatesta Gianluca, Marzoli Daniele, Apicella Fabio, Abiuso Claudia, Muratori Filippo, Forrester Gillian S, Vallortigara Giorgio, Scattoni Maria Luisa, Tommasi Luca
Department of Psychological, Health and Territorial Sciences, University "G. d'Annunzio" of Chieti-Pescara, Chieti, Italy.
IRCCS Stella Maris Foundation, Pisa, Italy.
Front Psychiatry. 2020 Feb 27;11:91. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00091. eCollection 2020.
A population-level left cradling bias exists whereby 60-90% of mothers hold their infants on the left side. This left biased positioning appears to be mutually beneficial to both the mother and the baby's brain organization for processing of socio-emotional stimuli. Previous research connected cradling asymmetries and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), entailing impairment in socio-communicative relationships and characterized by an early hypo-lateralization of brain functions. In this explorative study, we aimed to provide a contribution to the retrospective investigations by looking for early behavioral markers of neurodevelopmental disorders such as ASD. We hypothesized that an atypical trajectory in maternal cradling might be one of the possible signs of an interference in mother-infant socio-emotional communication, and thus of potential neurodevelopmental dysfunctions. To this aim, we examined photos depicting mother-child early cradling interactions by consulting family albums of 27 children later diagnosed with ASD and 63 typically developing children. As regards the first half of the first year of life, no differences were shown between maternal cradling-side preferences in typical and ASD groups, both exhibiting the left-cradling bias in the 0-3 months period, but not in the 3-6 months period. However, our results show dissimilar patterns of cradling preferences during the second half of the first year of life. In particular, the absence of left-cradling shown in typical mothers was not observed in ASD mothers, who exhibited a significant left-cradling bias in the 6-12 months age group. This difference might reflect the fact that mother-infant relationship involving children later diagnosed with ASD might remain "basic" because mothers experience a lack of social activity in such children. Alternatively, it may reflect the overstimulation in which mothers try to engage infants in response to their lack of responsiveness and social initiative. However, further investigations are needed both to distinguish between these two possibilities and to define the role of early typical and reversed cradling experiences on neurodevelopment.
存在一种群体层面的左抱偏好，即60%至90%的母亲将婴儿抱在左侧。这种向左的偏好姿势似乎对母亲和婴儿处理社会情感刺激的大脑组织都有好处。先前的研究将抱姿不对称与自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）联系起来，自闭症谱系障碍会导致社会交往关系受损，其特征是大脑功能早期的偏侧化不足。在这项探索性研究中，我们旨在通过寻找神经发育障碍（如ASD）的早期行为标志物，为回顾性研究做出贡献。我们假设母亲抱姿的非典型轨迹可能是母婴社会情感交流受到干扰的可能迹象之一，因此也是潜在神经发育功能障碍的迹象之一。为了实现这一目标，我们通过查阅27名后来被诊断为ASD的儿童和63名发育正常儿童的家庭相册，检查了描绘母婴早期抱姿互动的照片。在生命的第一年上半年，典型组和ASD组母亲的抱姿偏好没有差异，两组在0至3个月期间都表现出左抱偏好，但在3至6个月期间则没有。然而，我们的结果显示，在生命的第一年下半年，抱姿偏好模式有所不同。特别是，典型母亲中未出现的左抱偏好缺失在ASD母亲中并未观察到，她们在6至12个月年龄组中表现出显著的左抱偏好。这种差异可能反映了这样一个事实，即与后来被诊断为ASD的儿童的母婴关系可能仍然“基本”，因为母亲在这类儿童中缺乏社交活动体验。或者，这可能反映了母亲因婴儿缺乏反应和社交主动性而试图让婴儿过度兴奋。然而，需要进一步的研究来区分这两种可能性，并确定早期典型和反向抱姿体验对神经发育的作用。
