Vocalization and physiological hyperarousal in infant–caregiver dyads where the caregiver has elevated anxiety

Abstract

Co-regulation of physiological arousal within the caregiver–child dyad precedes later self-regulation within the individual. Despite the importance of unimpaired self-regulatory development for later adjustment outcomes, little is understood about how early co-regulatory processes can become dysregulated during early life. Aspects of caregiver behavior, such as patterns of anxious speech, may be one factor influencing infant arousal dysregulation. To address this, we made day-long, naturalistic biobehavioral recordings in home settings in caregiver–infant dyads using wearable autonomic devices and miniature microphones. We examined the association between arousal, vocalization intensity, and caregiver anxiety. We found that moments of high physiological arousal in infants were more likely to be accompanied by high caregiver arousal when caregivers had high self-reported trait anxiety. Anxious caregivers were also more likely to vocalize intensely at states of high arousal and produce intense vocalizations that occurred in clusters. High-intensity vocalizations were associated with more sustained increases in autonomic arousal for both anxious caregivers and their infants. Findings indicate that caregiver vocal behavior differs in anxious parents, cooccurs with dyadic arousal dysregulation, and could contribute to physiological arousal transmission. Implications for caregiver vocalization as an intervention target are discussed.

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“…But we have also discussed evidence that, in some situations, the opposite pattern can develop, giving rise to active dysregulation (metastatic processes) (Wass, 2023). As we describe in the context of ADHD, for example, increases in child arousal might be followed by an increase in child oppositional behaviour, followed by an increase in caregiver CNS arousal, followed by an increase in caregiver expressed emotions, followed by a further increase in child arousal, and so on (Granic & Patterson, 2006; Hollenstein et al., 2017; Lunkenheimer et al., 2017; Smith et al., 2023; Wass, 2023; see Figure 3C). Because they are hard to elicit and study in the laboratory, these types of child–caregiver interactions are under‐researched, both in the context of observational and intervention studies.…”

“…prefrontal cortex), while the ERP literature points towards hyperreactivity to, and sustained processing of, neutral infant cues (Yatziv, Vancor, Bunderson, & Rutherford, 2021). Home studies have suggested that anxious caregivers tend to over‐respond to small‐scale physiological changes in their child (Smith et al., 2023), relative to depressed and control caregivers (Beebe et al., 2008; Granat, Gadassi, Gilboa‐Schechtman, & Feldman, 2017), and to show higher behavioural synchrony with their children during laboratory‐based interaction (Doba et al., 2022; Granat, Gadassi, Gilboa‐Schechtman, & Feldman, 2017; Lemus, Vogel, Greaves, & Brito, 2022). This is consistent with findings that higher levels of caregiver–child synchrony are observed in ‘high‐risk’ samples (e.g.…”

“…For example, one study looked at caregiver vocal behaviour in caregivers with elevated anxiety. In the high anxiety group, caregivers' high arousal levels were more likely to associate with high‐intensity vocalisations, and caregivers were more likely to vocalise in high‐intensity, long‐lasting clusters (or ‘bursts’) compared to the low anxiety group (Smith et al., 2023). High‐intensity caregiver vocalisations led, in turn, to sustained increases in arousal among both children and caregivers in the high, but not the low, anxiety groups (Smith et al., 2023).…”

“…Caregivers respond to decreases in child attention by making themselves more salient (e.g. by increasing the rate of modulation of the voice); but then, when children's attention is re-engaged, they downregulate their salience and use other modalities such as task-related caregiver talk to actively prolong child attention durations (Slone, Abney, Smith, & Yu, 2023;Suarez-Rivera, Smith, & Yu, 2019). As with arousal regulation, this suggests that active attention regulation involves a mixture of first upregulating to match the child's state (positive feedback) and then downregulating (negative feedback).…”

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“…Computational and embodied models can be used to test simple predictions about feedback loops between brain and environment, and targeted intervention studies can be employed to test causality. Although these and similar ideas have been discussed in the context of disorders such as ADHD and anxiety (Smith et al., 2021) they remain relatively under‐explored in the research literature (Wass, 2021).…”