Department of Psychology, Toronto Metropolitan University, 350 Victoria Street, Toronto, ON M5B 2K3, Canada.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences and the Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 3L8, Canada.
Child Abuse Negl. 2022 Dec;134:105933. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105933. Epub 2022 Oct 22.
Experiences of childhood maltreatment are associated with a variety of negative outcomes throughout individuals' lives as well as disadvantaged cognitive and socioemotional development among their offspring. The mechanisms through which some children show resilience against the intergenerational transmission of risk, however, are less well understood.
The current study focuses on a proximal parental factor that plays a central role in children's early cognitive development - maternal sensitivity - and examines whether it moderates the association between maternal history of childhood maltreatment and child executive function (EF).
Data were collected from a community sample of 139 mothers and their infants (51 % female) recruited from urban areas in Ontario, Canada.
Maternal maltreatment history was assessed via self-report at child age 3 months. Maternal sensitivity was assessed observationally at child age 8 months, and child executive function was assessed using performance-based measures at child age 3 years. Hypotheses were tested through multiple regression models.
In the current sample, maternal maltreatment history was not associated with child EF on average. However, results were consistent with a moderation model, indicating that maternal maltreatment history was associated with lower levels of child EF only when mothers were relatively insensitive.
The findings indicate the importance of considering sensitive parenting practices as a protective factor for children's cognitive development in the context of more distal risk factors such as mothers' history of childhood maltreatment.
儿童期虐待经历与个体一生中的各种负面后果以及其后代认知和社会情感发展不利有关。然而，有些儿童表现出对代际风险传递的韧性的机制还不太清楚。
本研究关注在儿童早期认知发展中起核心作用的一个近端父母因素——母亲敏感性，并检验它是否调节了母亲儿童期虐待史与儿童执行功能（EF）之间的关系。
数据来自加拿大安大略省城市地区招募的 139 名母亲及其婴儿（51%为女性）的社区样本。
在儿童 3 个月大时通过自我报告评估母亲的虐待史。在儿童 8 个月大时通过观察评估母亲敏感性，在儿童 3 岁时使用基于表现的测量评估儿童执行功能。通过多元回归模型检验假设。
在当前样本中，母亲的虐待史与儿童的 EF 平均水平无关。然而，结果与调节模型一致，表明只有当母亲相对不敏感时，母亲的虐待史才与儿童 EF 水平较低有关。
这些发现表明，在更遥远的风险因素（如母亲的儿童期虐待史）的背景下，考虑敏感的育儿实践作为儿童认知发展的保护因素的重要性。
