Ada Cigala

Speaking about emotional events in hospital The role of health-care professionals in children emotional experiences

This paper presents a qualitative study aimed at exploring the role of health-care professionals in hospitalized children’s emotional experiences. A total of 27 children and adolescents from ages 6 to 15 years admitted to the Pediatric Hematology and Oncology ward of an Italian hospital participated in the study. Each participant was asked to talk about an emotional experience of happiness, anger, sadness and fear, felt in the presence of a doctor or nurse on the ward. The emotional tales were coded and analyzed qualitatively. The results showed that all the emotions considered were experienced when the staff was present, nurses in particular. Doctors and nurses played a role of active participants, encouraging children’s emotions, especially for happy events. More research is needed to clarify the role of the staff in supporting children to cope with negative emotions.

Learning others' point of view: perspective taking and prosocial behaviour in preschoolers

Perspective taking, defined as the ability to assume anothers perspective, can be considered a multidimensional construct which is composed of three different components: cognitive, visual and affective. This study wanted to verify the possibility of promoting perspective taking in preschoolers using ecological training. The maintenance of childrens acquired abilities after six months was also assessed. Subsequently, analyses were conducted to examine if a possible increase in these competences could positively influence prosocial disposition and determine a decrease of aggressiveness. The design was a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental procedure with independent samples: an experimental and a control group, each one with 30 children aged 3–5. Results showed a significant improvement in most of the investigated areas after the training, confirming the possibility of promoting perspective taking abilities. Moreover, children with greater perspective taking skills were also more inclined to behave in a prosocial way during peer interactions. Furthermore, these changes were persistent at the follow-up session six months later.

Family functioning in microtransition and socio-emotional competence in preschoolers

Microtransitions can be identified as those exchanges that occur during everyday life when family members negotiate a change in their interactions. This study aims to highlight how certain aspects of family functioning during microtransitions could influence the development of childrens socio-emotional competence in their interactions with peers. In order to achieve this aim, 24 family triads (mother, father, and preschooler child) were observed in a laboratory during semi-structured play activities for a total of 57 interactive sequences; the children were also observed in their nursery school context, where their socio-emotional competence was assessed through the analysis of 142 interactive sequences video-recorded during semi-structured play, and of a questionnaire filled out by teachers. The results indicated that children in families showing a higher degree of coordination were more relationally and socially competent with peers both during the video-observed play and in the descriptions of the teachers.

Family Microtransitions: An Observational Study

This research aimed to study the processes that take place during family microtransitions, that is, when family members move from an interactive form characterized by specific roles (active or peripheral) to another form that requires a change in these roles. For this purpose, 21 normative triads composed of mother, father, and a 4-year-old child were observed in a laboratory while playing together in a setting where they were asked to change their interactive configuration three times. The data revealed different ways of family functioning in coping with the microtransitions. Two groups emerged from the analysis that presented different characteristics. In particular, the family triads that completed the assigned task showed a significantly higher level of coordination and emotional tuning, a larger number of processes implied in the triadic dynamics, and a greater communicative coherence between the verbal, the expressive, and the corporal channels, compared with the group that did not complete the task.

Gli effetti del training sulle conversazioni madre- bambino in età prescolare su eventi del passato: implicazioni evolutive e cliniche

Il presente articolo si propone di illustrare e discutere, a partire da dati di ricerca, la possibilita di mettere a punto dei training rivolti al caregiver, per incrementare quelle competenze che, nella conversazione col bambino su eventi del passato (reminiscing), sembrano favorire nel piccolo l’emergere di diverse abilita. Molti studi riportano infatti come il reminiscing, se condotto con uno stile conversazionale di tipo elaborativo e centrato sulle emozioni, svolga importanti funzioni rispetto allo sviluppo della competenza narrativa, emotiva e della comprensione di se. Su questa base, altre ricerche condotte con diadi madre-bambino di eta prescolare a sviluppo tipico e atipico hanno evidenziato che interventi specifici di incremento della qualita del reminiscing del caregiver comportano dei benefici rispetto alle competenze narrative e socio-emotive dei bambini, con evidenti implicazioni sul piano clinico. Dopo una breve rassegna delle ricerche sugli effetti del reminiscing sullo sviluppo e sull’efficacia degli interventi realizzati con i genitori, vengono presentati gli schemi di codifica atti a individuare stili piu o meno funzionali di conversazione e due esempi di conversazioni qualitativamente diverse. Infine vengono proposte e commentate alcune modalita operative di conduzione di un training di reminiscing elaborativo ed emotivo.

Daily welcoming in childcare centre as a microtransition: an exploratory study

This study focuses on the everyday morning microtransition in childcare centres that involves child–parent separation. This moment involves the contemporary presence of the child, caregiver and parent in the day-care centre. This coexistence is considered extremely relevant and full of important meanings for the interactive patterns they will build together and for the childrens development. In order to explore this topic, 4 children (mean age 26 months), their parents and 3 caregivers were observed in a day-care centre for 3 months, for a total of 20 video-observations. Using a triadic perspective and microanalytic analysis method, the observations were analysed through the application of the triadic interaction analytical procedure. The results showed different interactive sequence processes to the microtransition from the parent–child interaction to the child–caregiver interaction. However, various types of interactive patterns emerged in relation to the child–parent–caregiver interaction, which show the active role of all the members in the co-construction of the interactive dynamic.

Cosa sono le emozioni?. Conoscenza emotiva in bambini maltrattati e non maltrattati

I bambini piccoli trascurati possono essere a rischio di deficit nella competenza emotiva. Bambini con storie di trascuratezza o che non avevano subito alcun tipo di maltrattamento sono stati inizialmente visti a 4 anni e ad un anno di distanza per valutare la loro competenza emotiva. Un piu alto QI e risultato essere associato con una migliore competenza emotiva, ma i bambini trascurati riportavano costantemente una peggiore competenza emotiva rispetto ai bambini non trascurati, avendo tenuto controllato l’effetto del QI. Poiche sia la trascuratezza sia il QI possono contribuire a deficit nella competenza emotiva, entrambi devono essere esaminati quando si valutano questi bambini per poter progettare e applicare in modo appropriato interventi per la competenza emotiva.Questo studio confronta alcune caratteristiche psicologiche (la presenza di distress personale e di stress genitoriale, la qualita dell’alleanza genitoriale e la percezione dell’adattamento del bambino) in padri e madri di bambini di eta prescolare a basso/alto rischio di maltrattamento fisico (misurato attraverso il punteggio ottenuto alla scala Maltrattamento del Child Abuse Potential Inventory Form VI - CAPI). I partecipanti alla ricerca sono 59 genitori ad alto rischio di maltrattamento fisico (punteggio ≥ 166; gruppo sperimentale) versus 59 genitori a basso rischio (punteggio < 166; gruppo di controllo) pareggiati per eta, status civile, livello di istruzione, eta e sesso del bambino. I risultati mostrano come sussistano differenze significative tra i due gruppi in tutte le variabili indagate: nello specifico, i genitori ad alto rischio di maltrattamento fisico presentano livelli maggiori di distress personale e di stress genitoriale, una minor percezione di alleanza genitoriale e valutano il comportamento del bambino come piu problematico del gruppo dei genitori a basso rischio di maltrattamento fisico.