Sonia Byrne

Brain and personality bases of insensitivity to infant cues in neglectful mothers: An event-related potential study

This investigation examined the neural and personality correlates of processing infant facial expressions in mothers with substantiated neglect of a child under 5 years old. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 14 neglectful and 14 control mothers as they viewed and categorized pictures of infant cries, laughs, and neutral faces. Maternal self-reports of anhedonia and empathy were also completed. Early (negative occipitotemporal component peaking at around 170 ms on the scalp [N170] and positive electrical potential peaking at about 200 ms [P200]) and late positive potential (LPP) components were selected. Both groups of mothers showed behavioral discrimination between the different facial expressions via reaction time and accuracy measures. Neglectful mothers did not exhibit increased N170 amplitude at temporal leads in response to viewing crying versus laughing and neutral expressions compared to control mothers. Both groups had greater P200 and LPP amplitudes at centroparietal leads in response to viewing crying versus neutral facial expressions. However, neglectful mothers displayed an overall attenuated brain response in LPP that was related to their higher scores in social anhedonia but not to their empathy scores. The ERP data suggest that the brains failures in the early differentiation of cry stimuli and in the sustained processing of infant expressions related to social anhedonia may underlie the insensitive responding in neglectful mothers. The implications of these results for the design and evaluation of preventive interventions are discussed.

Preventing child maltreatment through parenting programmes implemented at the local social services level

In the area of child maltreatment prevention, there is still a limited use of evidence-based parenting programmes based on the concept of positive parenting and devoted to the strengthening and empowering of at-risk families and children in the context of families–services partnerships. The aim of this paper is to examine how group-based programmes for parents of at-risk families can best be implemented and evaluated at the local social services level, as a sustained psycho-educational resource for the prevention of child maltreatment. To this end, and after reviewing some evidence of the effect of these programmes on family outcomes, we address the conditions under which these programmes might be successfully integrated into the family preservation services delivered at the local level. The implementation and evaluation of some of these programmes in Spain are used to illustrate the strategy of incorporation followed. Finally, we provide preliminary evidence of the impact of one of these programmes on professional development as one of the key factors in facilitating the sustainability of the programmes.

Inferior fronto-temporo-occipital connectivity: a missing link between maltreated girls and neglectful mothers

The neurobiological alterations resulting from adverse childhood experiences that subsequently may lead to neglectful mothering are poorly understood. Maternal neglect of an infant’s basic needs is the most prevalent type of child maltreatment. We tested white matter alterations in neglectful mothers, the majority of whom had also suffered maltreatment in their childhood, and compared them to a matched control group. The two groups were discriminated by a structural brain connectivity pattern comprising inferior fronto-temporo-occipital connectivity, which constitutes a major portion of the face-processing network and was indexed by fewer streamlines in neglectful mothers. Mediation and regression analyses showed that fewer streamlines in the right inferior longitudinal fasciculus tract (ILF-R) predicted a poorer quality of mother–child emotional availability observed during cooperative play and that effect depended on the respective interactions with left and right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculi (IFO-R/L), with no significant impact of psychopathological and cognitive conditions. Volume alteration in ILF-R but not in IFO-L modulated the impact of having been maltreated on emotional availability. The findings suggest the altered inferior fronto-temporal-occipital connectivity, affecting emotional visual processing, as a possible common neurological substrate linking a history of childhood maltreatment with maternal neglect.

Evaluación de la calidad ética y del contenido de los recursos online para padres

La calidad de los recursos online para padres que permiten acceder al conocimiento en abierto apenas ha recibido atencion a pesar de su incremento. Este estudio analiza la calidad tanto etica como de contenido de dichos recursos. Los criterios eticos estan basados en los de «Salud en la Red» (HON), mientras que los de contenido se basan en los principios de la Parentalidad Positiva y la efectividad de los materiales de aprendizaje usados. Los criterios se aplicaron a una muestra de webs internacionales (n=100) para padres y madres hispanohablantes. Los analisis de Chicuadrado mostraron que los sitios web espanoles, de empresas oficiales e informativos obtuvieron una calificacion mas alta en los criterios eticos que los recursos de Sudamerica, de padres e interactivos, en privacidad, autoridad, justificabilidad e informacion financiera. El Analisis Jerarquico de Cluster aplicado a los criterios de contenido mostro que los sitios web de alta calidad, a diferencia de los de baja calidad, valoraban la igualdad de genero, un rol parental positivo, modelaban una variedad de practicas parentales, contenidos educativos con formatos multimedia y proporcionaban experiencias, informacion academica y tecnicas. La privacidad, la informacion financiera, y la justificabilidad eran mas caracteristicos de los cluster con contenidos de Alta y Media calidad. En conclusion, el estudio ilustra algunos de los retos del conocimiento en abierto y define las areas prioritarias para la mejora de la calidad para los disenadores de webs y para los profesionales que quieran ayudar a los padres a desarrollar habilidades para buscar fuentes confiables

What Implementation Components Predict Positive Outcomes in a Parenting Program

Objectives: To examine the components affecting the quality of the implementation and their impact on the outcomes of the “Growing Up Happily in the Family” program targeted at parents with children aged 0–5. Method: At-risk and non-at-risk parents (N = 196) participated in 26 groups in local social services. Adherence, adaptations, quality of delivery, group and participant responsiveness, and implementation barriers were examined as predictors of attendance rate and changes in parental child-rearing attitudes, parental sense of competence, and parenting stress using hierarchical linear regressions analyses. Results: Greater participant responsiveness and fewer implementation barriers predicted higher attendance rates. These implementation variables, as well as greater program adherence, fewer crucial adaptations, and better didactic functioning of the sessions, predicted positive parental changes. Conclusions: The level of implementation contributes to the program effectiveness, suggesting the need to provide a high-quality and well-coordinated implementation to achieve the intended program outcomes in child welfare populations.

Adolescent lifestyle profiles and personal and community competences

Abstract Revealing how health-related lifestyle behaviors are associated with competences during adolescence can contribute to understanding the complexity of factors that intervene in adolescents’ health. The objectives of this study were to explore the clustering of different lifestyle behaviors and their connection to personal and community competence. Participants were 795 adolescents who were taking part in the initial assessment of a Spanish community-based intervention program. They were asked to complete four self-report measures: the Lifestyle Questionnaire, the Self-Concept and Social Realization Questionnaire, the Coping Scale for Children and Youth Questionnaire, and the Perceived Community Support Questionnaire. Cluster analysis was then used to discover different patterns of lifestyle behaviors and associate them with sociodemographic and competence factors. The cluster analysis revealed three groups of adolescents: a first group that presented all-round healthy habits, a second group with abusive screen use and a third group with unhealthy habits related to going out at night. These clusters were modulated by age, student status, psychosocial risk status and mothers’ level of education. Further analysis showed higher levels of Self-worth, Task-oriented strategy, Empathy and Community participation in the Healthy group compared to those in the Unhealthy group, whereas the Screen-user group had more Behavioral avoidance than the Healthy group and less Community integration than both of the other groups. The identification of personal and community competences as health-promoting factors associated with adolescents’ lifestyles may help professionals to prioritize certain strengths for best results in intervention programs.

‘Gaining health and wellbeing from birth to three’: a web-based positive parenting programme for primary care settings

ABSTRACT Current models of pediatric care include parental support as part of health promotion in the early years. This study introduces the modality of e-health by describing the universal ‘Gaining Health and Wellbeing from Birth to Three’ programme, reporting on the level of programme satisfaction among 249 parents and 350 professionals. The average level of satisfaction was very high for both groups. The professionals showed significantly higher rates than the parents in the ‘Activity’ factor, but there were no significant differences with regard to the ‘Programme experience’ and ‘Parenting impact’ factors. Parents living in single-parent families were more satisfied, whereas professionals who were more heavily engaged with the Internet were less satisfied with the parenting impact of the programme. In sum, this study has demonstrated that a cost-efficient (brief and fully automated) structured programme was able to reach a large population of participants and satisfy their expectations about the programme.

Assessing the ethical and content quality of online parenting resources

The quality of the online resources for parents offering access to open knowledge has hardly received attention despite their increasing number. This paper provides a framework to examine the ethical and content quality of parenting resources. The ethical criteria were based on “the Health on the Net” (HON) framework whereas the content criteria were based on the Positive Parenting framework and the effectiveness of the learning materials used. The criteria were applied to a survey of international websites (n=100) for Spanish-speaking parents. Chi-square analyses showed that websites from Spain, official companies sites and information sites, as compared to South American, parents’ and interactive sites, scored higher in the ethical criteria of privacy, authority, justifiability and financial disclosure. Hierarchical cluster analysis applied to content criteria showed that the High quality websites, unlike the Low quality ones, valued gender equality, a positive parental role, modeled a variety of parenting practices, educational contents with multimedia formats, and made use of experiential, academic and technical information. Privacy, financial disclosure and justifiability were more likely to be found in the High and Medium quality content clusters. In conclusion, the study illustrates some of the challenges of open knowledge and sets out the priority areas for quality improvement for website designers and for professionals who want to help parents develop effective skills for searching for trustworthy sources. RESUMEN La calidad de los recursos online para padres que permiten acceder al conocimiento en abierto apenas ha recibido atención a pesar de su incremento. Este estudio analiza la calidad tanto ética como de contenido de dichos recursos. Los criterios éticos están basados en los de «Salud en la Red» (HON), mientras que los de contenido se basan en los principios de la Parentalidad Positiva y la efectividad de los materiales de aprendizaje usados. Los criterios se aplicaron a una muestra de webs internacionales (n=100) para padres y madres hispanohablantes. Los análisis de Chi-cuadrado mostraron que los sitios web españoles, de empresas oficiales e informativos obtuvieron una calificación más alta en los criterios éticos que los recursos de Sudamérica, de padres e interactivos, en privacidad, autoridad, justificabilidad e información financiera. El Análisis Jerárquico de Clúster aplicado a los criterios de contenido mostró que los sitios web de alta calidad, a diferencia de los de baja calidad, valoraban la igualdad de género, un rol parental positivo, modelaban una variedad de prácticas parentales, contenidos educativos con formatos multimedia y proporcionaban experiencias, información académica y técnicas. La privacidad, la información financiera, y la justificabilidad eran más característicos de los clúster con contenidos de Alta y Media calidad. En conclusión, el estudio ilustra algunos de los retos del conocimiento en abierto y define las áreas prioritarias para la mejora de la calidad para los diseñadores de webs y para los profesionales que quieran ayudar a los padres a desarrollar habilidades para buscar fuentes confiables.