Fathers are more than social accidents. Research has demonstrated that fathers matter to children's development. Despite noted progress, challenges remain on how best to conceptualize and assess fathering and father–child relationships. The current monograph is the result of an SRCD‐sponsored meeting of fatherhood scholars brought together to discuss these challenges and make recommendations for best practices for incorporating fathers in studies on parenting and children's development. The first aim of this monograph was to provide a brief update on the current state of research on fathering and to lay out a developmental ecological systems perspective as a conceptual framework for understanding the different spaces fathers inhabit in their children's lives. Because there is wide variability in fathers’ roles, the ecological systems perspective situates fathers, mothers, children, and other caregivers within an evolving network of interrelated social relationships in which children and their parents change over time and space (e.g., residence). The second aim was to present examples of empirical studies conducted by members of the international working group that highlighted different methods, data collection, and statistical analyses used to capture the variability in father–child relationships. The monograph ends with a commentary that elaborates on the ecological systems framework with a discussion of the broader macrosystem and social‐contextual influences that impinge on fathers and their children. The collection of articles contributes to research on father–child relationships by advancing theory and presenting varied methods and analysis strategies that assist in understanding the father–child relationship and its impact on child development.

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For sixty-seven children with ASD (age 1;6 to 5;11), mean Total Vocabulary score on the Language Development Survey (LDS) was 65·3 words; twenty-two children had no reported words; and twenty-one children had 1–49 words. When matched for vocabulary size, children with ASD and children in the LDS normative sample did not differ in semantic category or word-class scores. Q correlations were large when percentage use scores for the ASD sample were compared with those for samples of typically developing children as well as children with vocabularies <50 words. The 57 words with the highest percentage use scores for the ASD children were primarily nouns, represented a variety of semantic categories, and overlapped substantially with the words having highest percentage use scores in samples of typically developing children as well as children with lexicons of <50 words. Results indicated that the children with ASD were acquiring essentially the same words as typically developing children, suggesting delayed but not deviant lexical composition.

The current study investigated connections between implicit motives of power and affiliation, adult attachment styles, and parenting behaviors using self-report and observational data from 191 mothers, fathers, and their 12-month-old infants. An interaction between avoidant attachment and nAffiliation indicated that implicit affiliation motives predicted positive maternal behaviors, but only for highly avoidant mothers. For fathers, lower attachment anxiety and nPower were associated with positive parenting behaviors, whereas high levels of attachment anxiety and nPower were associated with negative parenting behaviors. Attachment styles of avoidance and anxiety, as well as implicit motives of power and affiliation, were unique predictors of parenting behaviors. Overall, the findings suggest that parenting behaviors in the first year of infancy are predicted by parents' working models of attachment and implicit motives of affiliation and power.

Utilizing data from a longitudinal online survey of couples expecting their first child, this study sought to examine the trajectory of paternal-fetal attachment across the three trimesters of pregnancy. Expectant fathers (N=124) who completed at least the first two assessments were included in the analysis. Attachment was assessed using the Paternal Antenatal Attachment Scale, and paternal response to the ultrasound was measured with a four-item scale developed for this study. Longitudinal multilevel regression was used to model change in paternal-fetal attachment across assessments. Paternal-fetal attachment increased among all fathers, including those who showed less response to ultrasound and those who reported the pregnancy as mistimed or undesired. However desired pregnancy and stronger paternal response to ultrasound were associated with a larger increase in paternal-fetal attachment. The findings of the study have implications for the support of paternal-fetal attachment in health care and other settings.

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