Michelle Comas

Intergenerational Continuity of Child Abuse Among Adolescent Mothers Authoritarian Parenting, Community Violence, and Race

Among the negative sequelae of child maltreatment is increased risk for continuity of maltreatment into subsequent generations. Despite acknowledgment in the literature that the pathways toward breaking the cycle of maltreatment are likely the result of dynamic interactions of risk and protective factors across multiple ecological levels, few studies have followed high-risk samples of maltreated and nonmaltreated parents over time to evaluate such processes. In the current investigation, exposure to community violence and authoritarian parenting attitudes were evaluated as predictors of the intergenerational continuity of abuse, and the moderating effect of African American race was examined. The sample included 70 mothers and their 18-year-old children, who have been followed longitudinally since the third trimester of the adolescent mothers’ pregnancy. Results revealed that among mothers with a child abuse history, higher exposure to community violence and lower authoritarian parenting attitudes were associated with increased risk for intergenerational continuity of abuse. The relation of authoritarian parenting attitudes to intergenerational continuity was moderated by race; the protective effects of authoritarian parenting were limited to the African American families only. The salience of multiple ecological levels in interrupting the intergenerational continuity of child abuse is discussed, and implications for preventive programs are highlighted.

Training maltreating parents in elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing with their preschool-aged children.

OBJECTIVE In the current study, the effects of training maltreating parents and their preschool-aged children in elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing were examined. METHOD 44 Parent-child dyads were randomly assigned to a training (reminiscing) or wait-list (control) condition. All participating parents had substantiated maltreatment and were involved with the Department of Child Services at the time of enrollment. Children were 3-6 years old (M = 4.88, SD = .99) and living in the custody of the participating parent. Dyads in the reminiscing condition received four, weekly, in-home sessions in elaborative and emotion rich reminiscing. RESULTS At a follow-up assessment, maltreating parents in the reminiscing condition provided more high-elaborative utterances, references to childrens negative emotions, and explanations of childrens emotion during reminiscing than did parents in the control condition. Children in the reminiscing condition had richer memory recall and made more emotion references than did children in the control condition during reminiscing with their mothers, but not with an experimenter. CONCLUSION The findings suggest that maltreating parents can be taught elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing skills, with benefits for child cognitive and emotional development. The potential clinical utility of a reminiscing-based training for maltreating families with young children is discussed.

Mother-Child Reminiscing and Autobiographical Memory Specificity among Preschool-Age Children.

Overgeneral memory (OGM) refers to difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories. The tendency to be overgeneral in autobiographical memory recall is more commonly observed among individuals with emotional disorders compared with those without. Despite significant advances in theory and identification of mechanisms that underlie the etiology of OGM, there has been little integration between normative research on the development of autobiographical memory and research on OGM. Informed by a developmental psychopathology perspective and drawing on normative developmental research on the social construction of autobiographical memory, the current investigation examined whether the elaborative quantity and elaborative quality of maternal reminiscing are predictive of preschool-age childrens autobiographical memory specificity. Additionally, this investigation tested whether childrens positive self-representations may explain these hypothesized associations. Participants consisted of 95 mother-child dyads. Childrens ages ranged between 3.5 and 6 years, and the sample was predominantly low income and of minority race/ethnicity. Dyads participated in a joint reminiscing task about 4 past events, and children participated in assessments of autobiographical memory specificity and self-representations. Results indicated that the elaborative quality, defined by maternal-sensitive guidance and emotional narrative coherence, but not the elaborative quantity, of maternal reminiscing style was significantly associated with childrens autobiographical memory specificity. Additionally, there was support for an indirect pathway between maternal reminiscing quality and child memory specificity through childrens positive self-representations. Directions for future research are discussed, and potential clinical implications are addressed.

Autobiographical memory specificity among preschool-aged children.

Overgeneral memory refers to difficulty retrieving specific autobiographical memories and is consistently associated with depression and/or trauma. The present study developed a downward extension of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986) given the need to document normative developmental changes in ability to retrieve specific memories among preschoolers. Confirmatory factor analysis and item response theory demonstrated that the AMT-Preschool Version maintained the same underlying 1-factor structure as the original. Additionally, the present study determined that child age was associated with increased specificity. Inhibitory control was evaluated as a potential mediator. Although age was related to inhibition, inhibition was unrelated to memory specificity. This finding adds to research suggesting that behavioral inhibition is unrelated to overgeneral memory among youth.

Mother–child reminiscing at risk: Maternal attachment, elaboration, and child autobiographical memory specificity

Mother-child reminiscing, the process by which mothers and their children discuss past events and emotional experiences, has been robustly linked with child outcomes, including autobiographical memory. To advance previous work linking elaborative maternal reminiscing with child autobiographical memory specificity, the ability to generate and retrieve specific memories from ones past, it is essential to make distinctions among aspects of elaboration and to consider how maternal risk factors may influence the reminiscing context. The current study evaluated (a) an interaction between emotional and structural elaboration predicting child autobiographical memory specificity and (b) the potential moderating role of maternal adult attachment. Participants consisted of 95 preschool-aged children and their mothers. The sample was predominantly low income and racially diverse. Dyads completed a reminiscing task that was coded for emotional and structural elaboration. Mothers completed the Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire (ECR-R) to assess attachment-related avoidance and anxiety, and children completed the Autobiographical Memory Test-Preschool Version (AMT-PV) to assess memory specificity. Results indicated that the association between structural reminiscing and child memory specificity was moderated by emotional elements of reminiscing. At high levels of emotional elaboration, mothers with high levels of structural elaboration had children with more specific memory than mothers with low levels of structural elaboration. Moreover, emotional elaboration (a) predicted less specific child memory without high structural support and (b) negatively predicted child specificity at high levels of maternal attachment avoidance and anxiety, a profile associated with fearful avoidance. Future directions and implications are discussed.

Maternal elaborative reminiscing mediates the effect of child maltreatment on behavioral and physiological functioning

Theoretical and empirical evidence suggest that the way in which parents discuss everyday emotional experiences with their young children (i.e., elaborative reminiscing) has significant implications for child cognitive and socioemotional functioning, and that maltreating parents have a particularly difficult time in engaging in this type of dialogue. This dyadic interactional exchange, therefore, has the potential to be an important process variable linking child maltreatment to developmental outcomes at multiple levels of analysis. The current investigation evaluated the role of maternal elaborative reminiscing in associations between maltreatment and child cognitive, emotional, and physiological functioning. Participants included 43 maltreated and 49 nonmaltreated children (aged 3-6) and their mothers. Dyads participated in a joint reminiscing task about four past emotional events, and children participated in assessments of receptive language and emotion knowledge. Child salivary cortisol was also collected from children three times a day (waking, midday, and bedtime) on 2 consecutive days to assess daily levels and diurnal decline. Results indicated that maltreating mothers engaged in significantly less elaborative reminiscing than did nonmaltreating mothers. Maternal elaborative reminiscing mediated associations between child maltreatment and child receptive language and child emotion knowledge. In addition, there was support for an indirect pathway between child maltreatment and child cortisol diurnal decline through maternal elaborative reminiscing. Directions for future research are discussed, and potential clinical implications are addressed.

The Direct and Interactive Effects of Physical Abuse Severity and Negative Affectivity on Length of Psychiatric Hospitalization: Evidence of Differential Reactivity to Adverse Environments in Psychiatrically High-Risk Youth

The current study examined the interactive influence of multiple factors (i.e., physical abuse severity and negative affectivity) in predicting youth’s inpatient psychiatric length of stay (LOS), extending previous research focused on identification of only single LOS predictors. Elevated physical abuse severity was hypothesized to predict longer youth LOS, and negative affectivity was anticipated to exacerbate this relationship. This study included 42 youth. Clinicians rated youth temperament, whereas physical abuse severity and LOS were coded from youth medical records. Controlling for other previously determined predictors of LOS (i.e., age, gender, and GAF), moderation analyses confirmed hypotheses, revealing a temperament by environment interaction. Specifically, physical abuse severity was positively associated with LOS only in the context of high negative affectivity. Findings highlighted the importance of disentangling the interactive effects of multiple factors in predicting LOS. Moreover, critical clinical implications involving prioritized trauma assessment and treatment for inpatient youth are discussed.

Preschoolers' Autobiographical Memory Specificity Relates to Their Emotional Adjustment.

ABSTRACT Reduced autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) has robust associations with psychopathology. As such, understanding the development of AMS (or its inverse, overgeneral autobiographical memory) and how it may be unique from other aspects of memory performance is important. In particular, it is unclear whether child AMS is distinct from autobiographical memory performance in other contexts, such as during mother–child reminiscing, and whether reduced AMS during early childhood is associated with emotional adjustment as found later in development. In this study, associations between children’s AMS and memory performance during mother–child reminiscing were evaluated. Moreover, the contributions of each type of child memory performance to child internalizing and externalizing symptoms were examined. Participants included 95 mother–child dyads drawn from a diverse, low-income community. Children’s ages ranged from 3.5 years to 6 years. Dyads participated in a joint reminiscing task about 4 past events, children participated in assessments of AMS, and mothers rated children’s emotional adjustment. Path analysis results indicated that children’s AMS was not significantly related to children’s unique memory contributions during reminiscing. Child AMS was negatively associated with emotional symptoms, whereas child memory during reminiscing was not.

Differential roles of resistance to proactive interference and suppression of prepotent responses in overgeneral memory

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Overgeneral memory (OGM), difficulty in retrieving specific autobiographical memories, is a robust phenomenon related to the onset and course of depressive and posttraumatic stress disorders. Inhibitory mechanisms are theorized to underlie OGM; however, empirical support for this link is equivocal. The current study examines the differential roles of two aspects of inhibitory control in association with OGM: suppression of prepotent responses and resistance to proactive interference (PI). Only resistance to PI was expected to be negatively related to OGM, whereby individuals with greater ability to resist PI would have reduced OGM. METHOD Participants (n = 49) completed a self-report measure of depressive symptoms and engaged in two tasks aimed at assessing resistance to PI and suppression of prepotent responses. Participants also completed a task assessing overgeneral autobiographical memory. RESULTS As hypothesized, resistance to PI, but not suppression of prepotent responses negatively predicted OGM above and beyond the influence of depressive symptoms. LIMITATIONS Because a double dissociation was not examined, we cannot address the potential independence of the submechanisms of inhibitory control that we assessed. CONCLUSIONS Results exemplify the differential associations of two components of inhibition and OGM, suggesting that resistance to PI, in particular, may contribute to the development and/or maintenance of OGM and associated depressive disorders. Directions for future research are discussed.