School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Sciences, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing 100101, China; Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS), Beijing 100101, China.
School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Shanxi Medical University, Shanxi 030001, China.
Child Abuse Negl. 2022 Dec;134:105931. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105931. Epub 2022 Oct 25.
Maternal personal history of childhood abuse has been found to predict child social-emotional problems; however, little is known about the intergenerational associations between maternal childhood abuse and child cognitive outcomes.
This study aims at examining the intergenerational associations of maternal childhood emotional abuse and physical abuse with child executive functions among Chinese families with preschoolers, and exploring how these associations are mediated by maternal perspective-taking skills and mother-child conflict.
Participants were 309 preschoolers (152 boys) aged 2-6 years and their mothers. Mothers reported on their childhood abuse histories, perspective taking, and mother-child conflict at baseline (T1). Five months later (T2), child executive functions including working memory, inhibitory control, and cognitive flexibility were assessed using five computerized tasks.
After controlling for child gender and age, associations with child executive functions were found for maternal childhood emotional abuse, but not physical abuse. Specifically, severer childhood emotional abuse directly predicted lower levels of child cognitive flexibility. Furthermore, chained mediation paths were found from maternal childhood emotional abuse to lower levels of child working memory and inhibitory control through worse maternal perspective taking skills and then more mother-child conflicts.
Our findings provide evidence for less optimal executive functions among preschoolers with emotionally abused mothers. Developing strategies to resolve the long-lasting impacts of maternal childhood emotional abuse may be important for reducing the risks of being unable to fully achieve the cognitive potentials of the next generation.
已有研究发现，母亲童年期遭受虐待的经历可预测儿童的社会情绪问题，但关于母亲童年期虐待与儿童认知结果之间的代际关联知之甚少。
本研究旨在检验中国学龄前儿童家庭中，母亲童年期情感虐待和躯体虐待与儿童执行功能之间的代际关联，并探讨这些关联是否通过母亲的同理心技能和母子冲突来介导。
参与者为 309 名 2-6 岁的学龄前儿童（152 名男孩）及其母亲。母亲在基线（T1）时报告其童年期虐待史、同理心技能和母子冲突。5 个月后（T2），使用 5 项计算机化任务评估儿童的执行功能，包括工作记忆、抑制控制和认知灵活性。
在控制了儿童的性别和年龄后，发现母亲童年期情感虐待与儿童执行功能相关，而与躯体虐待无关。具体而言，更严重的童年期情感虐待直接预测了儿童认知灵活性较低。此外，还发现了从母亲童年期情感虐待到儿童工作记忆和抑制控制水平降低的链式中介路径，其通过更差的母亲同理心技能和更多的母子冲突来实现。
我们的研究结果为那些被情感虐待的母亲抚养的学龄前儿童提供了执行功能较差的证据。制定策略以解决母亲童年期情感虐待的长期影响，对于降低下一代无法充分发挥认知潜力的风险可能很重要。
