Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA.
Department of Human Ecology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, USA.
Dev Psychopathol. 2021 Aug;33(3):868-884. doi: 10.1017/S095457942000019X.
Dysregulation in children's physiological stress systems is a key process linking early adversity to poor health and psychopathology. Thus, interventions that improve children's stress physiology may help prevent deleterious health outcomes. Reminiscing and Emotion Training (RET) is a brief relational intervention designed to improve maternal caregiving support by enhancing maltreating mothers' capacity to reminisce with their young children. This study evaluated associations between maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and the RET intervention with changes in children's diurnal cortisol regulation across the 1 year following the intervention, and the extent to which improvements in maternal elaborative reminiscing differed between intervention groups and mediated change in children's physiological functioning. Participants were 237 children (aged 36 to 86 months) and their mothers. Results indicated that the RET intervention was associated with significant positive change in elaborative reminiscing, which was sustained over time. Mothers' elaboration immediately after the intervention served as a mediator of RET's effects on improvements in children's diurnal cortisol regulation (steeper diurnal slopes) from baseline to 1 year following intervention. This suggests RET is effective in facilitating physiological regulation among maltreated children.
儿童生理压力系统的失调是将早期逆境与健康不良和精神病理学联系起来的关键过程。因此，改善儿童应激生理的干预措施可能有助于预防不良的健康结果。回忆和情绪训练（RET）是一种简短的关系干预措施，旨在通过增强虐待母亲与幼儿回忆的能力来提高母亲的养育支持。本研究评估了虐待、亲密伴侣暴力和 RET 干预与干预后 1 年内儿童日间皮质醇调节变化之间的关联，以及干预组之间改善母亲详尽回忆的程度以及儿童生理功能变化的中介作用。参与者是 237 名儿童（年龄 36 至 86 个月）及其母亲。结果表明，RET 干预与详尽回忆的显著积极变化有关，这种变化随着时间的推移而持续。母亲在干预后的详细阐述立即作为 RET 对儿童日间皮质醇调节（日间斜率变陡）从基线到干预后 1 年的改善的中介。这表明 RET 有效地促进了受虐待儿童的生理调节。
