Competence in Children at Risk for Psychopathology Predicted from Confirmatory and Disconfirmatory Family Communication

Abstract

The relationship between confirmation/disconfirmation in parental and family communication and offspring social competence was examined in 59 families in which at least one of the parents had been hospitalized for a functional psychiatric disorder. Communication samples were obtained using the Consensus Rorschach procedure both with parental couples and with parent-child family units. The communication was analyzed using the Confirmation-Disconfirmation Coding System (CONDIS). The competence at school of 7-and 10-year-old boys was rated by both peers and teachers. Competence at home was rated by the parents. The results indicated that the more competent the high-risk children were, both at school and at home, the more their family communicated in confirmatory ways and the less they communicated in disconfirmatory ways. Furthermore, although the parental couple CONDIS score and the family CONDIS score were modestly correlated, each contributed separately to the prediction of offspring competence. These communication data were not significantly related to parental psychopathology, neither severity of parental impairment nor the diagnosis of the patient-parent.

Confirmatory and disconfirmatory family communication as predictor of offspring socio‐emotional functioning. A 10 to 14 year follow‐up of children at risk

“…In URCAFS, families in which a parent has had a serious psychiatric disorder were examined when a male offspring was either 7 or 10 years old. In a previous article from the URCAFS study we showed that a composite measure of confirming and disconfirming family communication (CONDIS) predicted offspring's social competence as rated by peers, teachers and parents (17). These findings were still significant after controlling for dimensions of parental psychopathology.…”

“…Thus, there is an obvious need for substantiating such a hypothesis with longitudinal research. Furthermore, because family communication has been shown to correlate concurrently with social competence (17,26), we do not yet know if the potential effect of family communication is mediated through the offspring's social competence, or if the effects are separate.…”

Family Narrative Interaction and Children's Sense of Self

“…In addition, family interactions that facilitate autonomy while not sacrificing relatedness facilitate positive and healthy self‐esteem development in preadolescents (Allen, Hauser, Bell, & O'Connor, 1994). Even for at‐risk children, families who engage in more confirmatory communication patterns have children with higher social competence and fewer psychiatric symptoms (Wichstrom, Holte, Husby, & Wynne, 1993; Wynne, 1983).…”

Mapping early environment using communication deviance: A longitudinal study of maternal sensitivity towards 6-month-old children

“…Importantly, in the context of the substantial literature on CD in schizophrenia, the observed association between CD and lower maternal sensitivity to distress may help to explain previously observed associations between CD and poor social and emotional outcomes in children Wichstrøm, Holte, Husby, et al, 1993;Wichstrøm, Holte, & Wynne, 1993;Wichstrøm et al, 1994) and psychopathology in adult offspring (de Sousa et al, 2013;Roisko et al, 2014;Wahlberg et al, 1997Wahlberg et al, , 2000. Moreover, such disruptions could partly explain the cognitive and affective atypicalities often observed in young children who are later diagnosed with schizophrenia (Welham, Isohanni, Jones, & McGrath, 2009) in birth cohort studies (Cannon et al, 2002;Jones, Rodgers, Murray, & Marmot, 1994).…”

“…The construct reflects a range of perceptual-cognitive and linguistic-verbal reasoning atypicalities that are believed to impair the establishment and maintenance of focus of attention during communication and hence compromise the development of grounding, shared meaning and conversational alignment between interlocutors (Miklowitz & Stackman, 1992;Nuechterlein, Goldstein, Ventura, Dawson, & Doane, reported associations between parental communication that is vague, contradictory and disconfirming and both anxiety (Wichstrøm, Holte, & Wynne, 1993) and poorer social competence in 7 and 10 year old offspring (Wichstrøm, Holte, Husbey, & Wynne, 1994;Wichstrøm, Holte, Husby, & Wynne, 1993). Interestingly, in the same high-risk cohort, but at longer follow-up (≥18 years of age), disqualifying communication in parents significantly predicted psychological distress, well-being and global mental health in their children .…”