Infant Development: The First 3 Years of Life

Humphreys, Kathryn L.; Zeanah, Charles H.; Scheeringa, Michael S.

doi:10.1002/9781118753378.ch9

Cited by 13 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 142 publications

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“…The interactions a child has with his or her caregivers during the first few years of life are particularly impactful and have lasting effects on development across domains [1][2][3]. The current study was motivated by existing literature linking parental depression with significantly poorer outcomes in children; relations which are in part explained by differences in the parent-child relationship [4].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first few years of a child's life are marked by sensitivity to the environment, and as such the interactions a child has with their caregivers during this time provides a rich source of early learning that is theorized to have lasting effects on development across domains [1][2][3]. Depression in parents is a significant risk factor for poorer outcomes for children, in part due to differences in the parent-child relationship [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Depressive symptoms in parents are associated with reduced empathy toward their young children

2020

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Background While depression is typically associated with reduced levels of empathy, this association differs depending on how empathy is measured. Given the importance of empathy in the parent-child relationship, we sought to examine whether the associations between depression and dispositional empathy would also extend to empathy towards one's own child. Methods Within a non-clinical sample of 150 parents of young children, we examined the associations between self-reported depressive symptoms, dispositional empathic tendencies, and empathy specifically toward their own children, and how these associations might differ based on parent gender. Results Depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of cognitive and affective empathy, and higher levels of empathic distress. Over and above the association with dispositional empathy, depressive symptoms were associated with reduced levels of parents' affective empathy toward their own child. The associations between depressive symptoms and both dispositional and own-child specific empathy varied by parent gender. For fathers, depressive symptoms predicted own-child specific affective empathy, over and above dispositional affective empathy, while for mothers, depressive symptoms predicted own-child specific empathic distress, over and above dispositional empathic distress. Conclusions The current findings provide further indication that caregivers with elevated depression may engage in patterns of thoughts and behaviors that have implications for their interactions with their children. Parents' experienced empathy toward their own child may be one mechanism by which depression impacts the early caregiving environment, and thus may be an important target for intervention in improving the early caregiving experiences for children at PLOS ONE

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Depressive symptoms in parents are associated with reduced empathy toward their young children

2020

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“…In other words, if across multiple tasks and multiple ages children growing up in institutions are largely indistinguishable from never‐institutionalized children in their ability to ‘read’ facial emotion, what accounts for the severe deficits we and others have observed in social‐emotional behaviour? For instance, we know from other studies that institutionalized children suffer from a number of lasting social abnormalities including attachment disturbances and disorders and quasi‐autistic symptoms (Humphreys, Zeanah, & Scheeringa, ; Levin, Fox, Zeanah, & Nelson, ). One possibility is that the perceptual apparatus involved in decoding facial emotion is unaffected by social deprivation and exists independently of children's social–emotional development.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of early institutionalization on emotional face processing: evidence for sparing via an experience‐dependent mechanism

Young

Luyster

Zeanah

et al. 2017

British J of Dev Psycho

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Early psychosocial deprivation has profound adverse effects on children’s brain and behavioral development, including abnormalities in physical growth, intellectual function, social cognition, and emotional development. Nevertheless, the domain of emotional face-processing has appeared in previous research to be relatively spared; here, we test for possible sleeper effects emerging in early adolescence. The present study employed event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the neural correlates of facial emotion processing in 12-year-old children who took part in a randomized controlled trial of foster care as an intervention for early institutionalization. Results revealed no significant group differences in two face and emotion-sensitive ERP components (P1 and N170), nor any association with age at placement or percent of lifetime spent in an institution. These results converged with previous evidence from this population supporting relative sparing of facial emotion processing. We hypothesize that this sparing is due to an experience-dependent mechanism in which the amount of exposure to faces and facial expressions of emotion children received was sufficient to meet the low threshold required for cortical specialization of structures critical to emotion-processing.

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“…The first years of life lay the foundation for cognitive, social, and emotional competencies (Humphreys, Zeanah, & Scheeringa, 2014). Current research examining the association between maternal care and the underlying molecular processes controlling neural plasticity is expected to complement the existing behavioral and psychological studies.…”

Section: Maternal Deprivation and Neural Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using cross-species comparisons and a neurobiological framework to understand early social deprivation effects on behavioral development

et al. 2015

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Building upon the transactional model of brain development, we explore the impact of early maternal deprivation on neural development and plasticity in three neural systems: hyperactivity/impulsivity, executive function, and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis functioning across rodent, nonhuman primate, and human studies. Recognizing the complexity of early maternal–infant interactions, we limit our cross-species comparisons to data from rodent models of artificial rearing, nonhuman primate studies of peer rearing, and the relations between these two experimental approaches and human studies of children exposed to the early severe psychosocial deprivation associated with institutional care. In addition to discussing the strengths and limitations of these paradigms, we present the current state of research on the neurobiological impact of early maternal deprivation and the evidence of sensitive periods, noting methodological challenges. Integrating data across preclinical animal models and human studies, we speculate about the underlying biological mechanisms; the differential impact of deprivation due to temporal factors including onset, offset, and duration of the exposure; and the possibility and consequences of reopening of sensitive periods during adolescence.

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Infant Development: The First 3 Years of Life

Cited by 13 publications

References 142 publications

Depressive symptoms in parents are associated with reduced empathy toward their young children

Depressive symptoms in parents are associated with reduced empathy toward their young children

The effects of early institutionalization on emotional face processing: evidence for sparing via an experience‐dependent mechanism

Using cross-species comparisons and a neurobiological framework to understand early social deprivation effects on behavioral development

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