Elizabeth Meins

Young Children’s Trust in Their Mother’s Claims: Longitudinal Links With Attachment Security in Infancy

In a longitudinal study of attachment, children (N = 147) aged 50 and 61 months heard their mother and a stranger make conflicting claims. In 2 tasks, the available perceptual cues were equally consistent with either persons claim but children generally accepted the mothers claims over those of the stranger. In a 3rd task, the perceptual cues favored the strangers claims, and children generally accepted her claims over those of the mother. However, childrens pattern of responding varied by attachment status. The strategy of relying on the mother or the stranger, depending on the available perceptual cues, was especially evident among secure children. Insecure-avoidant children displayed less reliance on their mothers claims, irrespective of the available cues, whereas insecure-resistant children displayed more.

Associations between maternal mind-mindedness and infant attachment security: investigating the mediating role of maternal sensitivity.

In the last 20 years, three meta-analyses suggested that the relation between maternal sensitivity and infant attachment security was lesser in magnitude than originally believed. This led to a search for other parental behaviors likely to contribute to the development of attachment security. Based on previous theoretical propositions and empirical findings suggesting that maternal mind-mindedness may contribute to infant attachment security by favoring maternal sensitivity, the aim of this study was to examine whether sensitivity mediates the relation between maternal mind-mindedness and infant attachment security. Fifty mother-infant dyads took part in two home visits (12 months and 15 months), allowing for assessment of maternal sensitivity (T1), mind-mindedness (T1), and infant attachment (T2). The results confirmed that maternal sensitivity mediates the relation between mind-mindedness and infant attachment. The findings are discussed in light of the assessments used in this and previous studies.

Mind-Mindedness in Children: Individual Differences in Internal-State Talk in Middle Childhood.

Childrens use of internal-state language during 2 tasks (book narration and describing a best friend) was investigated in a sample (N=38) of 7- to 9-year-olds. Proportional use of internal-state talk on the two tasks was highly positively correlated, a relation that was independent of verbosity, age, verbal ability and the use of non-internal-state language. Theory of mind (ToM) performance, assessed using Happes (1994) strange stories task, was not related to childrens proportional use of internal-state language on either task. We suggest that these cross-task relations provide evidence of individual differences in childrens spontaneous use of internal-state language that are independent of their capacities for representing those internal states.

A Threshold Approach to Understanding the Origins of Attachment Disorganization.

Disorganized attachment in infancy is known to predict a wide range of maladaptive outcomes, but its origins are poorly understood. Parental lack of resolution concerning loss or trauma has been proposed to result in atypical parenting behaviors, which in turn have a disorganizing effect on the parent-child relationship. The authors review the evidence for this transmission pathway, considering other factors (e.g., social environment, child characteristics) that might enrich understanding of the antecedents of disorganization. A threshold approach is proposed to explain (a) why different parental behaviors are linked to disorganization depending on prevailing social conditions and (b) why certain children appear more vulnerable to forming a disorganized attachment relationship.

Sociocultural Influences on the Development of Verbal Mediation: Private Speech and Phonological Recoding in Saudi Arabian and British Samples.

Cross-national stability in private speech (PS) and short-term memory was investigated in Saudi Arabian (n = 63) and British (n = 58) 4- to 8-year-olds. Assumed differences in child-adult interaction between the 2 nationality groups led to predictions of Gender x Nationality interactions in the development of verbal mediation. British boys used more self-regulatory PS than British girls, whereas there was no such difference for the Saudi group. When age, verbal ability, and social speech were controlled, boys used slightly more self-regulatory PS than girls. Self-regulatory PS was related to childrens use of phonological recoding of visually presented material in a short-term memory task, suggesting that PS and phonological recoding represent different facets of a domain-general transition toward verbal mediation in early childhood.

The roles of private speech and inner speech in planning during middle childhood: evidence from a dual task paradigm.

Children often talk themselves through their activities, producing private speech that is internalized to form inner speech. This study assessed the effect of articulatory suppression (which suppresses private and inner speech) on Tower of London performance in 7- to 10-year-olds, relative to performance in a control condition with a nonverbal secondary task. Experiment 1 showed no effect of articulatory suppression on performance with the standard Tower of London procedure; we interpret this in terms of a lack of planning in our sample. Experiment 2 used a modified procedure in which participants were forced to plan ahead. Performance in the articulatory suppression condition was lower than that in the control condition, consistent with a role for self-directed (private and inner) speech in planning. On problems of intermediate difficulty, participants producing more private speech in the control condition showed greater susceptibility to interference from articulatory suppression than their peers, suggesting that articulatory suppression interfered with performance by blocking self-directed (private and inner) speech.

Sensitive attunement to infants'internal states: operationalizing the construct of mind-mindedness

This paper focuses on caregiver sensitivity, its relation to mind-mindedness (caregivers’ attunement to their infants’ internal states), and how well both constructs predict infant attachment security. The seminal Baltimore research on sensitivity and its relation to attachment security is summarized, highlighting the conclusion that mothers in the insecure-resistant and insecure-avoidant categories could not be distinguished on the basis of sensitivity. The contrast between the complex, sophisticated construct detailed in the original studies and the broad-based nature of the sensitivity coding scale is discussed. This paper argues that we should return to Ainsworth, Bell, and Stayton’s (1971, 1974) original emphasis on the caregiver’s ability to perceive things from the child’s point of view in defining a measure of the quality of early infant–caregiver interaction. This approach led to the development of the construct of mind-mindedness. There are two mind-mindedness indices: caregivers’ tendency during infant–caregiver interaction to (a) comment appropriately on their infants’ putative thoughts and feelings (appropriate mind-related comments), and (b) misread their infants’ internal states (non-attuned mind-related comments). Both indices predict independent variance in infant–caregiver attachment security, and together can distinguish between the secure, avoidant, and resistant categories. The specific, multidimensional nature of mind-mindedness complements the global construct of sensitivity.

The Frequency of Restricted and Repetitive Behaviors in a Community Sample of 15-Month-Old Infants

Objective: To investigate the frequency and pattern of a wide range of restricted and repetitive behaviors in the second year of life. Method: Parents of 139 15-month-old typically developing infants from a community sample completed the Repetitive Behavior Questionnaire-2, giving information on restricted and repetitive behaviors (e.g., stereotyped motor movements, sensory interests, routines and rituals, and preoccupations with restricted interests) seen in their children. Results: The Repetitive Behavior Questionnaire-2 was found to be a reliable measure of these behaviors at this age and revealed a high frequency of particular types of repetitive motor movements in 15 month olds. Conclusion: These findings have implications for the early detection of disorders characterized by high levels of restricted and repetitive behaviors, such as autism spectrum disorder.

Callous‐unemotional traits and impulsivity: distinct longitudinal relations with mind‐mindedness and understanding of others

Background Problems in understanding other peoples mental states may relate to distinct personality traits that are associated with early externalizing behavior. A distinction between theory of mind (ToM) and empathy has proven important in shedding light on the problems in understanding other minds encountered by children high on callous‐unemotional (CU) traits and exhibiting impulsivity. The aim of this study was to investigate whether childrens early ToM and emotion understanding abilities predicted CU traits and impulsivity at age 10. A further aim was to explore whether the quality of the parent–child relationship very early in the development indirectly or directly predicted the childrens CU traits and impulsivity. Method We examined whether ToM and empathy skills might differentially relate to personality traits associated with externalizing behaviors (i.e., impulsivity and CU traits). We examined these relations over time in a longitudinal cohort of 96 boys and girls using follow‐back analyses, incorporating measures of maternal mind‐mindedness (appropriate mind‐related talk) to examine the possible role of parent–child interaction quality. Results Appropriate mind‐related talk indirectly predicted CU traits (at age 10 years) via its effect on childrens emotion understanding. ToM predicted impulsive/irresponsible traits, but ceased to be significant when controlling for externalizing behaviors. Conclusion The present findings demonstrate that parents who remark appropriately on their infants mental states may help the child to understand emotions and may mold an empathic understanding of others, thereby preventing CU traits.

Self-knowledge in childhood: Relations with children's imaginary companions and understanding of mind

Relations between interior self-knowledge and (a) imaginary companion (IC) status and (b) theory of mind (ToM) abilities were investigated in a sample (N= 80) of 4- to 7-year-olds. Interior self-knowledge was assessed in terms of the extent to which children acknowledged that they (rather than an adult) were the authority on unobservable aspects of themselves (e.g., dreaming, thinking, hunger). Compared with children without an IC, those who possessed a parentally corroborated IC ascribed less interior self-knowledge to an adult, with a trend for them to assign more interior self-knowledge to themselves. Childrens interior self-knowledge judgments were not associated with their ToM performance. IC status was also unrelated to ToM performance. We consider how having an IC may provide children with opportunities to distinguish between knowledge that is inaccessible to an external observer and that which an external observer may glean without being told.