Patrick Meurs

The structure and stability of temperament from infancy to toddlerhood: A one-year prospective study

This study investigated the factor structure and longitudinal stability of temperament in a multi-informant (i.e., as reported by mothers and fathers), one-year prospective study from infancy (8-13 months) to toddlerhood (20-25 months). Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) replicate and extend earlier studies; in that evidence was found for a three-factor structure for both infant and toddler temperament, consisting of Surgency/Extraversion, Negative Affectivity and Effortful Control. There were, especially in toddlerhood, few differences between mother and father reports in average scores on the three temperament factors, which were in part related to differences in parental involvement between mothers and fathers. In addition, there were few differences between average scores for boys and girls on these temperament factors, with the exception that both mothers and fathers rated girls higher on Effortful Control, and fathers rated boys higher on Extraversion/Surgency, especially in toddlerhood. Finally, results showed that the three factors showed high relative, absolute, and structural stability over a one-year period. The implications of these findings for contemporary temperament research are discussed.

Psychosomatic symptoms, embodiment and affect Weaving threads to the affectively experienced body in therapy with a neurotic and a borderline child

Abstract In the treatment of patients with psychosomatic symptoms, the restoration of the link with the affectively experienced body is of crucial importance. The affectively experienced body is the seat of emotional life and the basis upon which words and language can process the meaning of emotions. We will focus on the restoration of the link with the affectively experienced body in a neurotic patient and in a patient with a borderline character structure. In the course of the therapeutic process, intense countertransference feelings, often experienced on a bodily level, are important indications of the aspects of affective life that have been ejected or foreclosed by the patient with psychosomatic symptoms. If the therapist can contain the primitive affects that have been ejected by the patient, then these affects can be ‘digested’ and given back or communicated to the patient in a tolerable and meaningful way. Thus, the patient can reintegrate aspects of his affective life and rebuild the link with t...

2 Empathie in ontwikkeling

Empathie is een bijzondere en complexe menselijke vaardigheid. Zelfs indien men van mening is dat de aanleg tot empathie bij de geboorte meegegeven zou zijn – als onderdeel van het aangeboren sociale repertoire – dan nog heeft het kind vanaf de geboorte behoefte aan een omgevingsaanbod waardoor de aanleg voor sociale gerichtheid en empathie tot ontplooiing komt.

Allochtone kinderen tijdens het eerste levensjaar: invloed van sociaaleconomische en etnische status op specifieke ontwikkelingsdomeinen

SummaryImmigrant children in the first year of life: influence of socio-economic and ethnic status on specific developmental domains A vast amount of research indicates that children from an ethnic minority, even those from the second and the third generation immigrants, show an increasing number of learning and developmental problems going from kindergarten to the first grades of elementary school. Therefore, early detection and prevention becomes increasingly crucial, in part to control the enormous costs of these problems. In our study (N=406), developmental profiles of non-western children from a lower and middle class socio-economic status (SES) were investigated. We looked at ethnicity, poverty and their interaction, because they lead to a considerable leeway in development from the first year of life. The vulnerabilities of these children are especially found in the cognitive and the linguistic/communicative sphere. But also their strengths, mainly on the socio-emotional domain, are shown. Next to ethnicity, poverty is another risk factor in child development. The influence of being from a low SES background is broader then that of ethnicity because it impedes all developmental lines: language, cognition, motor, self-management and socio-emotional development, and its negative effect size is significantly greater then that of ethnicity. A significant interaction effect means that poverty impedes immigrant children more severely than autochthon children. The main results from our study on development in the first year of life are translated into principles for early preventive developmental guidance programs, more specifically we introduce the need for developmental line specific prevention that starts in the period that precedes kindergarten.

‘t Huis der Gezinnen : een multicultureel buurtproject van preventieve ontwikkelingsbegeleiding en opvoedingsondersteuning in Brussel

Het preventieve hulpaanbod in het Huis der Gezinnen (in Kuregem bij Brussel) is gericht op ouders en hun kinderen van nul tot zes jaar. Het wil zowel concrete steun en perspectieven voor reele opvoedingssituaties en -problemen (opvoedingsondersteuning) aanbieden, als het opvoedkundige potentieel van de ouders versterken en de affectiefrelationele dynamiek tussen de ouders en hun kinderen (ontwikkelingsbegeleiding) bevorderen. Het heeft tot doel ontregeling van de affectieve communicatie en/of het opvoedkundig handelen vroegtijdig op te sporen en waar mogelijk verdere problemen te voorkomen of zo nodig, door te verwijzen voor een specifiek therapeutisch aanbod. Bovendien beoogt de preventie ook ouderlijke opvoedingscapaciteiten en ontwikkelingspaden van hun kinderen te optimaliseren. Dit tweevoudige doel – preventie van problemen en bevorderen van normale ontwikkelingskansen – wordt nagestreefd door middel van groepsgesprekken met moeders en vaders, door spelateliers waarin ouders en kinderen samen betrokken worden en door ‘drie generatie groepen’. Bij deze laatste vorm laat het transgenerationele aspect toe om actuele normale bezorgdheden alsook onveilige gehechtheid in de generatielijn van grootouders, ouders en kinderen te begrijpen. Aan het slot van deze bijdrage bespreken we kort het onderzoek naar de effecten van deze preventieve ontwikkelingsbegeleiding.