It is widely assumed that a linkage, crucial to the understanding of child behavior, exists between marital and parent-child relationship quality. A meta-analysis of 68 studies was conducted to determine whether this linkage exists and, if so, whether the linkage is positive (as suggested by the spill-over hypothesis) or negative (as suggested by the compensatory hypothesis). Results supported the spillover hypothesis; a positive and nonhomogeneous effect size of moderate magnitude was found (d = 0.46). This suggests that research in this area can move beyond the question of whether a positive or negative association exists to identifying moderators of the association. Examination of the impact of 13 potential moderators did not support the existence of any of these variables that could be adequately examined. This suggests that the link between marital and parent-child relations functions as a more stable force than previously thought.

A deficit in theory of mind (ToM) abilities has been described as the core deficit in autism. The authors performed 3 meta-analyses, comparing ToM abilities of individuals with autism, individuals with mental retardation (MR), and normally developing individuals. Results indicated that individuals with autism and MR have impaired TbM abilities. The etiology associated with MR (i.e., Down syndrome, undifferentiated etiology) was found to be an important moderator variable. Chronological age (CA) and verbal mental age (VMA) of the normally developing children and CA, VMA, and performance mental age of individuals with MR, and type of matching between the groups were also found to be moderator variables. Discussion focuses on the implication of the findings and emphasizes the need to consider the specific etiology of comparison groups when studying abilities and impairments of individuals with autism and MR.

Mothers, fathers, and 8- to 11-year-old children from 181 two-parent families independently reported on the occurrence of husband-to-wife physical aggression and wife-to-husband physical aggression; parents additionally indicated whether the child had been witness to the aggression. First this study examined interspousal agreement regarding whether parents have been physically aggressive toward one another and whether the child has witnessed interparental physical aggression. There was moderate agreement between parents as to the occurrence of physical aggression and only fair agreement as to whether the child saw or heard the aggression. Second, this study explored the diagnosticity of a joint parent report as an indicator of child exposure to marital aggression. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves are presented separately for husbands’ and wives’ aggression, indicating the explicit trade-off between true positives (sensitivity) and false positives (one minus specificity) in using the joint parent report as a diagnostic indicator. Standard ROC analysis suggests that the joint parent report is equally diagnostic in predicting children’s reports of exposure to husbands’ and wives’ aggression. Finally, decisions regarding how to use parent reports as an indicator of children’s exposure to marital aggression are discussed as depending on the base rate of child reports of exposure and the objective sought in classifying children and/or families.

The study examines whether the link between the marital relationship and sibling interaction is direct or mediated by the mother-child relationship. Seventy-three same-sex siblings pairs aged 3 years 6 months to 8 years 6 months were observed during free play. Mothers completed questionnaires assessing marital functioning and their relationship with their 2 children. Results indicated that older siblings' negative behavior is linked with negative dimensions of the marital and the mother-child relationship, whereas younger siblings' negative behavior is linked with the mother-child and the differential mother-child relationship. Siblings; positive behavior, although linked with spacing, is not linked with positive dimensions of family interaction. Most important, the linkage between negative marital relations and older siblings; negative behavior was found to be mediated by maternal power assertion, thereby supporting the indirect model of negative family interaction.