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The present study aims to investigate cross-cultural differences and similarities in maternal and children's adjustment to COVID-19 restrictions in Spain and Italy, with reference to determinants of maternal stress. A total of 950 mothers (45.4% from Spain

Infant faces are prioritized by the attentional system in parents, resulting in a greater cognitive engagement in terms of response time. However, many biological, contextual and environmental factors relating to this cognitive mechanism have been left unexplored. To fill this gap, this study aims to (i) confirm that infant faces engage more attention compared to adult faces; (ii) investigate whether the attention to infant faces is affected early care experiences of parents; (iii) explore the effect of parents’ sex by taking the amount of involvement with early childcare into consideration. 51 mothers and 46 fathers completed a modified Go/no-Go task, a brief sociodemographic questionnaire, the short version of the Adult Parental Acceptance–Rejection scale, and an ad-hoc question relating to the amount of parental involvement with early childcare. Parents’ response times were slowed in the presence of infant versus adult faces. Parents whose mother was perceived as more sensitively accepting were more engaged by infant cues. By considering the amount of early parental involvement, the sex of parents did not significantly interact with the type of face. These findings provide new insights on the attention process in response to infant cues in parents and suggest that the investigation of experience-based factors may shed further light on this topic.

Research during the COVID-19 pandemic has shown a strong relationship between child symptoms, parental stress, and mental health challenges. The pandemic has changed family routines, worsening child symptomatology and parental burden. The aim of this study was to investigate how the magnitude of the perceived changes in child externalizing behavior, parental stress, and discontinuity of therapy—from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic—affected parental mental health during the pandemic. Moreover, we sought to compare these aspects cross-culturally between European countries and the USA. To these purposes, we asked Italian, Spanish, and U.S. parents of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDD) to complete an online survey. Quantitative results showed that increased parental stress may have contributed to a worsening in parental psychological distress, regardless of culture. Moreover, they suggested an indirect effect of child externalizing behaviors on parents’ psychological distress via parental stress. Qualitative analyses highlighted that the lack, or discontinuity, of therapeutic activities may have been one of the key contributors to parenting burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, qualitative results highlighted resilience factors that could have decreased the risk of psychological problems during the pandemic, such as a strong sense of parental efficacy and the ability to adapt to changing family dynamics.

During play activities, children express behaviors, emotions, ways of thinking and learning, as well as social skills, desires, and fears. Differences in the play of children with ASD appear during the first year of life and remain during development. Impairment in symbolic play constitutes one of the most relevant clinical aspects observed during a clinical assessment in young children. However, caregiver involvement in child activities enhances the frequency, duration, and complexity of child play. Given the importance for children with ASD to maintain routines and stability, hospitalization constitutes a challenging moment since they are removed from their familiar environment. In this chapter, the focus will be on the characteristics of play of children with ASD during interaction with caregivers, and on the attention to be used in the context of hospitalization.

The few studies available on quality of attachment in school-age children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exclusively used questionnaires assessing explicit attachment representations. Thus, in the current study we assessed both explicit and implicit attachment representations in 23 children with ASD (without intellectual disability), 22 with learning disabilities and 27 with typical development aged from 7 to 13 years. A self-reported measure on the quality of attachment to parents and a semi-structured interview were administered to the children. In addition, a developmental assessment of the child including measures of intelligence and social-communication impairment was conducted. Despite the lack of group differences on explicit attachment representations, we found that children with ASD showed higher rates of at-risk self-protective strategies and psychological trauma compared to the TD group. Children with SLD also showed a high level of at-risk implicit attachment representations than TD, albeit to a lesser extent compared to children with ASD. These results may be related to several factors associated with ASD impairment and developmental pathways, such as the atypical learning process which occur at interpersonal level, the difficulties in social information processing and reflective functioning. Our findings suggested that children with ASD may experience difficulties in the construction of balanced implicit attachment representations. Thus, a more comprehensive assessment of attachment including both implicit and explicit representations is recommended.

Evidence of psychological distress in families during COVID-19 outbreak are arising. However, the perceived changes in psychological adjustment during home confinement with respect to the period before the pandemic have not been addressed yet. Moreover, little is known about the role of coparenting and specific COVID-19 contextual variables on parental stress and children's behavioral difficulties in the Italian context. Using a cross-sectional survey, we collected data on 841 Italian parents of children aged 3-11 years with typical development during the home confinement (20th April-18th May). We analyzed levels of parental stress, coparenting, and child externalizing behaviors before and during the home confinement. Additionally, hierarchical regressions were performed to investigate predictors of parental stress and child externalizing behaviors during the lockdown. Results showed that parental stress (especially in mothers) and child externalizing behaviors increased during the lockdown period. Coparenting was a strong predictor of parental stress, together with being a mother, younger child age, less time dedicated to the child, and scarce feasibility of remote working. Besides, child externalizing behaviors were predicted by male gender, less parental time dedicated to the child, higher parental stress, and child distance learning workload. Our findings indicate a negative impact of COVID-19 lockdown in both parents and children, suggesting that positive coparenting and time dedicated to children may help to reduce the detrimental effect of pandemic restrictions on family adjustment.Están surgiendo datos sobre el distrés psicológico en las familias durante el brote de la COVID-19. Sin embargo, aún no se han abordado los cambios percibidos en la adaptación psicológica durante el confinamiento. Este estudio tuvo como finalidad investigar los cambios en los niveles de estrés de los padres, las dificultades conductuales de los niños y la cocrianza antes y durante el confinamiento en el hogar. Además, analizamos los factores pronósticos de estrés por la crianza y las conductas de exteriorización de los niños durante el confinamiento. Utilizando una encuesta representativa, recogimos datos sobre 841 padres italianos durante el confinamiento en el hogar (desde el 20 de abril hasta el 18 de mayo). Analizamos los niveles de estrés de los padres, la cocrianza y las conductas de exteriorización de los niños antes y durante el confinamiento. Se realizaron regresiones jerárquicas para investigar los factores pronósticos de estrés de los padres y las conductas de exteriorización de los niños durante el confinamiento. El estrés de los padres (especialmente de las madres) y las conductas de exteriorización de los niños aumentaron durante el periodo de confinamiento. La cocrianza se mantuvo estable y fue un factor pronóstico fuerte del estrés de los padres, junto con ser madre, niños más pequeños, menos tiempo dedicado al niño y escasa viabilidad de trabajar virtualmente. Las conductas de exteriorización de los niños fueron pronosticadas por el género masculino, menos tiempo de los padres dedicado al niño, un mayor estrés de los padres y la cantidad de actividades de la enseñanza a distancia del niño. Nuestros resultados indican un efecto negativo del confinamiento por la COVID-19 tanto en los padres como en los niños e indican que la cocrianza positiva y el tiempo dedicado a los niños pueden contribuir a reducir el efecto perjudicial de las restricciones de la pandemia en la adaptación familiar.有证据表明，新冠肺炎疫情期间有家庭出现心理困扰。然而，封锁期间心理调整的变化尚未得到解决。本研究旨在调查父母压力水平的变化，儿童的行为困难，以及家庭被禁闭前和期间的亲子关系。此外，我们还考察了封闭期父母压力和儿童外化行为的预测因子。通过横断面调查，我们收集了841名意大利父母在家庭禁闭期间(4月20日- 5月18日)的数据。我们分析了在禁闭前和禁闭期间父母的压力水平，亲子关系和孩子的外化行为。父母压力(尤其是母亲)和儿童外化行为在封闭期有所增加。亲子关系保持稳定与否，可以预测父母压力，再加上身为母亲、孩子年龄更小、花在孩子身上的时间更少、远程工作的可能性更小。儿童外化行为的预测因素有: 男性、父母亲子时间较少、父母压力较大和儿童远程学习工作量较大。我们的研究结果表明，COVID-19封锁对父母和儿童都有负面影响，研究表明积极的父母教养方式和对儿童的投入时间可能有助于减少流行病期间的限制对家庭调整的不利影响。.

We studied the development of narrative ability yearly in a cross-sectional design from 4 to 10 years. All children were give the same props and underwent the same procedures. Children’s narratives were transcribed verbatim, and then coded for number of: words, propositions, episodes and indexes of narrative cohesion and structure. Verbal IQ was controlled as appropriate. Words showed no significant effect for age. Number of propositions and episodes followed nonlinear trajectories of development, and spline regression analyses identified maxima at 8 and 7 years, respectively. However, indexes of cohesion and structure followed linear trajectories of development. Accepted version This research was supported by the Nanyang Assistant Professor Start-Up Grant, the Intramural Research Program of the NIH/NICHD, USA, and an International Research Fellowship in collaboration with the Centre for the Evaluation of Development Policies (EDePO) at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG).

Studies on parental interaction in the context of ASD has mainly focused on mothers, even if fathers and their children seem to form close and supportive relationships that may have unique effects on child development. Given the impact of ASD symptoms on a child’s ability to interact with significant others, recent findings strengthen the importance of including caregivers during treatment to guarantee a better adaptation to the child’s impairments. Despite this, fathers are scarcely involved, and interventions seem to not be tailored to their interactive characteristics and needs. For this reason, a systematic review was conducted to investigate fathers and children with ASD behaviors during interaction. This review found 12 observational studies that identified social, cognitive, and affective interactive modalities in father–child dyads through three psychology-focused journal databases: PubMed, PsycINFO and Scopus. The significant variation in both sample size and in the measures used to assess dyadic outcomes limits the ability of this work to make robust recommendations for intervention. Despite this, the results revealed characteristic behaviors of this dyad that consequently allow specific targets to be worked on during intervention. In fact, from fathers’ individual strengths and weaknesses, it is possible to implement interventions that are complementary with maternal characteristics from the perspective of personalized and optimized treatment.

(1) Background: Parental involvement during intervention with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been demonstrated to be fundamental for children&rsquo, s developmental outcomes. However, most research focused on child gains especially considering cognitive functioning and symptoms severity, whereas parental and dyadic changes during intervention need further investigation. (2) Methods: 29 mothers in interaction with their preschool children with ASD were analyzed through two standardized behavioral and observational measures to evaluate the dyadic Emotional Availability (EA) and play skills before (T1) and after (T2) a parental-based intervention. (3) Results: Results revealed mothers increased affective quality and major awareness in understanding the signals produced by the child, that in turn was more responsive, involving also using more complex play strategies. Interestingly, the role of specific factors able to predict parental characteristics was investigated, pointing out the important contribution of mothers&rsquo, perceptions of having a difficult child and child language communicative abilities. (4) Conclusions: the study enhances knowledge about child and caregiver variables that impact on dyadic outcomes, identifying important target areas to be addressed during intervention. Further, our results suggest that a parental-based intervention supports and facilitates improvements in both children&rsquo, s and caregivers&rsquo, affective quality and cognitive abilities.

Research on the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted negative effects on the general population and particularly on parents. However, little is known about families of children with Neurodevelopmental Disorder (NDD). The present study investigated parental stress, coparenting, and child adjustment in Italian families with children with NDD (N = 82) and typical developing children (TD, N = 82) during lockdown, using an online survey. Results of quantitative analyses showed a significant increase in parental stress and child externalizing behaviors, but not of coparenting. Parental stress is predicted by externalizing behaviors, and coparenting acted as a moderator in the relationship between the change in the amount of time spent with the children before and during lockdown and parental stress. In children with NDD, the decrease in therapeutic/rehabilitation support predicted higher externalizing behaviors. Qualitative analysis showed that beyond the difficulties and worries arising during lockdown, most of the parents appreciated the opportunity of spending more time with their children and strengthening the parent-child relationship. In conclusion, our results point out the importance of ensuring continuity of care for children with NDD (e.g. telehealth) during home confinement and of providing psychological support for parents.

Background Few studies have investigated the characteristics of father language directed to typically developing children (TD), and father speech directed to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is largely under investigated. Considering the importance of involving fathers of children with ASD in research and clinical practice, the main purpose of this study was to investigate paternal speech directed to children with ASD compared to that of fathers of TD children. Methods To this aim, we coded multiple functional aspects of speech during 10-min naturalistic dyadic play interactions between fathers and their preschool children with ASD (n = 20) and with TD (n = 20). Results Results showed that fathers of children with ASD displayed a peculiar child-directed language that seems to reflect the effort to provide enhanced scaffolding and reduced demands while sustaining a challenging social interaction. Specifically, fathers of children with ASD used more descriptions, fewer questions in general but more questions about child internal states. Moreover, fathers adapted aspects of their information-salient speech to the severity of child impairments. Conclusions Our findings support the importance to include fathers in early developmental intervention programs for children with ASD, by underlying fathers’ spontaneous adaptation to their children's needs.

An accumulating body of evidence indicates a tight relationship between the endocrine system and abnormal social behavior. Two evolutionarily conserved hypothalamic peptides, oxytocin and arginine-vasopressin, because of their extensively documented function in supporting and regulating affiliative and socio-emotional responses, have attracted great interest for their critical implications for autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A large number of controlled trials demonstrated that exogenous oxytocin or arginine-vasopressin administration can mitigate social behavior impairment in ASD. Furthermore, there exists long-standing evidence of severe socioemotional dysfunctions after hypothalamic lesions in animals and humans. However, despite the major role of the hypothalamus for the synthesis and release of oxytocin and vasopressin, and the evident hypothalamic implication in affiliative behavior in animals and humans, a rather small number of neuroimaging studies showed an association between this region and socioemotional responses in ASD. This review aims to provide a critical synthesis of evidences linking alterations of the hypothalamus with impaired social cognition and behavior in ASD by integrating results of both anatomical and functional studies in individuals with ASD as well as in healthy carriers of oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genetic risk variant for ASD. Current findings, although limited, indicate that morphofunctional anomalies are implicated in the pathophysiology of ASD and call for further investigations aiming to elucidate anatomical and functional properties of hypothalamic nuclei underlying atypical socioemotional behavior in ASD.

The impact of different parenting-related variables on child psychological development is widely acknowledged. However, studies about the specific influence of maternal and family dimensions on child early developmental outcomes in at-risk dyads are still scarce. The aim of this longitudinal study was to investigate the short- and middle-term effects of prenatal and postnatal family and maternal features, and child attachment, on child psychological development at 3 and 24 months in at-risk families. Forty-two mothers with psychological, social and/or demographic risk conditions and their first-born infants were assessed longitudinally. Measurements of maternal personality, psychological and depressive symptoms, family socioeconomic status (SES), child-mother attachment, and infant general psychological development were collected at multiple time points, through validated questionnaires and/or mother-child observation. Maternal and family dimensions showed a significant effect on child psychological development over time. The expected detrimental role of reported maternal depressive symptoms was observed both at 3 and 24 months of child's age. Data also highlighted the negative contribution of low family SES and an unexpected positive influence of maternal personality trait of psychoticism on child psychological development at 24 months. We also found a positive association between attachment security and child developmental outcome. These findings might have relevant implications for the implementation of early prevention programs by differentiating the specific predictive role of maternal child and familial factors on child psychological development in at-risk families.

Background Emotional availability (EA) is a dyadic relationship construct that can be considered an index of emotional quality of parent-child interaction. Using this construct, some research showed that both parent and child components of EA reflect key aspects of the parent-child relationship, but there are few studies that investigated these aspects in families with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The present study addresses several specific issues about the emotional availability of parents of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Method We observed free-play interactions of 40 children with ASD (chronological age = 41.6 months, SD = 12; M mental age = 30.9 months, SD = 13.3) playing separately with their mothers and fathers one by one. We coded each parent-child dyad using the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS, Biringen, 2008). Results Findings showed that mothers and fathers were equally emotionally available to their children. There were no differences between the two in parents’ EA scales nor in their associations with child level of functioning and severity of the symptoms. In addition, children showed similar mean levels of Responsiveness and Involvement in mother-child and father-child interactions. However, children’s emotional availability was associated to their cognitive functioning and the severity of their symptoms. Conclusions The emotional quality of dyadic interaction is equal in mother-child and father-child dyads in families of children with ASD. We discuss the clinical utility of the EA Scales for assessing relationship between parents and their children with ASD and we speculate the possible relevance of our findings on father-child relationship for future intervention studies involving fathers on par with mothers.

The purpose of the present study was to analyze mother-child collaborative play in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) compared to children with Down Syndrome (DS) and typical developing children (TD). Children with ASD are often described as having deficient play skills, particularly in the symbolic domain. Caregivers' involvement in child play activities increases the structural complexity of playing in both typically developing children and children with disabilities. Participants included 75 mothers and their children with ASD (n = 25), with Down Syndrome (n = 25) and with typical development (n = 25). Mother–child play sessions were analyzed using a coding system for exploratory and symbolic play. Results indicated that children with ASD showed more exploratory play compared to children in the other groups. No significant differences emerged between the three groups for child symbolic play or for mother play. These findings are discussed in relation to the debate about functional and symbolic play in children with ASD and in relation to the importance of setting and age for play assessment.

The human infant face represents an essential source of communicative signals on the basis of which adults modulate their interactions with infants. Behavioral studies demonstrate that infants' faces activate sensitive and attuned responses in adults through their gaze, face expression, voice, and gesture. In this study we aimed to identify brain responses that underlie adults' general propensity to respond to infant faces. We recorded fMRI during adults' (non-parents) processing of unfamiliar infant faces compared to carefully matched adult faces and infrahuman mammal infant and adult faces. Human infant faces activated several brain systems including the lateral premotor cortex, supplementary motor area, cingulate cortex, anterior insula and the thalamus. Activation of these brain circuits suggests adults' preparation for communicative behavior with infants as well as attachment and caregiving. The same brain regions preferentially responded to human infant faces when compared to animal infant faces, indicating species-specific adult brain responses. Moreover, results of support vector machine based classification analysis indicated that these regions allowed above chance-level prediction of brain state during perception of human infant faces. The complex of brain responses to human infant faces appears to include biological mechanisms that underlie responsiveness and a caring inclination toward young children which appear to transcend adult's biological relationship to the baby.

Despite intersubject variability, dramatic impairments of socio-communicative skills are core features of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD). A deficit in the ability to express and understand emotions has often been hypothesized to be an important correlate of such impairments. Little is known about individuals with ASD's ability to sense emotions conveyed by nonsocial stimuli such as music. Music has been found to be capable of evoking and conveying strong and consistent positive and negative emotions in healthy subjects. The ability to process perceptual and emotional aspects of music seems to be maintained in ASD. Individuals with ASD and neurotypical (NT) controls underwent a single functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) session while processing happy and sad music excerpts. Overall, fMRI results indicated that while listening to both happy and sad music, individuals with ASD activated cortical and subcortical brain regions known to be involved in emotion processing and reward. A comparison of ASD participants with NT individuals demonstrated decreased brain activity in the premotor area and in the left anterior insula, especially in response to happy music excerpts. Our findings shed new light on the neurobiological correlates of preserved and altered emotional processing in ASD.

The aim of this study was to compare functional features of maternal and paternal speech directed to children with Down syndrome and developmental age-matched typically developing children. Altogether 88 parents (44 mothers and 44 fathers) and their 44 young children (22 children with Down syndrome and 22 typically developing children) participated. Parents' speech directed to children was obtained through observation of naturalistic parent-child dyadic interactions. Verbatim transcripts of maternal and paternal language were categorized in terms of the primary function of each speech unit. Parents (both mothers and fathers) of children with Down syndrome used more affect-salient speech compared to parents of typically developing children. Although parents used the same amounts of information-salient speech, parents of children with Down syndrome used more direct statements and asked fewer questions than did parents of typically developing children. Concerning parent gender, in both groups mothers used more language than fathers and specifically more descriptions. These findings held controlling for child age and MLU and family SES. This study highlights strengths and weaknesses of parental communication to children with Down syndrome and helps to identify areas of potential improvement through intervention.

This study uses country and regional contrasts to examine culture-common and community-specific variation in mother-infant emotional relationships. Altogether, 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. American mothers and their daughters and sons, living in rural and metropolitan settings, were observed at home at infant age 5 months. Both variable- and person-centered perspectives of dyadic emotional relationships were analyzed. Supporting the notion that adequate emotional relationships are a critical and culture-common characteristic of human infant development, across all samples most dyads scored in the adaptive range in terms of emotional relationships. Giving evidence of community-specific characteristics, Italian mothers were more sensitive, and Italian infants more responsive, than Argentine and U.S. mothers and infants; in addition, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers and rural dyads more likely than expected to be classified as midrange in emotional relationships and less likely to be classified as high in emotional relationships. Adaptive emotional relationships appear to be a culture-common characteristic of mother-infant dyads near the beginning of life, but this relational construct is moderated by a community-specific (country and regional) context.

This study employs an intra-national and cross-national, prospective, and longitudinal design to examine age, gender, region, and country variation in group mean-level continuity and individual-differences stability of emotional availability in child—mother dyads. Altogether, 220 Argentine, Italian, and US American metropolitan and rural residence mothers and their daughters and sons were observed at home when children were five and 20 months of age. Similar patterns of continuity and discontinuity of emotional availability from five to 20 months were observed across regions and countries, but not between genders. Stability of emotional availability from five to 20 months was moderate and similar across genders, regions, and countries. Universal and gender-specific developmental processes in child—mother emotional availability as revealed in intra-national and cross-national study are discussed.

SYNOPSIS Objective. Emotional availability (EA) is a relationship construct that can be considered a global index of the emotional quality of parent–child interaction. The present study aimed to address several specific questions about mother–child and father–child emotional availability in families with a child with Down's syndrome (DS). Design . Free-play interactions of 22 children with DS (M chronological age = 35.32 mo) We coded separately with each parent using the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales (Biringen, Robinson, & Emde, 1998). Results . Overall, mothers and fathers and their children with DS were equally emotionally available to one another. Bivariate correlations between maternal and paternal EA ratings of Sensitivity, Structuring, and Nonhostility showed significant positive associations. Moreover, bivariate correlations also highlighted the stability of child Responsiveness and Involvement across interactions with the two parents. There were no differences between mothers and fathers in m...

Le but de cette etude est d'explorer l'interaction mere-enfant et ses associations avec le jeu chez les enfants atteints de trisomie. Il existe un consensus selon lequel l'interaction mere-enfant durant le jeu represente un determinant important du developpement du jeu des enfants typiques. Pour ce qui concerne les enfants trisomiques, peu d'etudes se sont penchees sur l'interaction mere-enfant-en termes de qualite emotionnelle generale de l'interaction dyadique-et ses effets sur le jeu de l'enfant. Un echantillon de 28 enfants trisomiques (M âge =3 ans) a pris part a l'etude. Nous esperions particulierement verifier si la presence de la mere dans un contexte d'interaction affecte le jeu d'exploration et le jeu symbolique de l'enfant trisomique et la relation entre le niveau de jeu des enfants et la disponibilite emotionnelle dyadique. Les enfants ont fait preuve de plus de jeu exploratoire durant le jeu collaboratif avec les meres que durant le jeu solitaire. Cependant, l'effet maternel sur le jeu symbolique de l'enfant etait plus eleve chez les enfants de mere tres sensibles par rapport aux enfants dont les meres faisaient etat d'une sensibilite moins elevee, les premieres faisant peuve de plus de jeu symbolique que les dernieres dans le jeu collaboratif. Les resultats prouvent que la disponibilite emotionnelle dyadique et le niveau de jeu de l'enfant sont lies chez les enfants trisomiques, ce qui est lie a l'hypothese selon laquelle les interactions dyadiques basees sur une niveau sain de participation emotionnelle peuvent mener a un fonctionnement cognitif accru.

Child healthy development is largely influenced by parent-child interaction and a secure parent-child attachment is predictively associated with positive outcomes in numerous domains of child development. However, the parent-child relationship can be affected by several psychosocial and socio-demographic risk factors that undermine its quality and in turn play a negative role in short and long term child psychological health. Prevention and intervention programs that support parenting skills in at-risk families can efficiently reduce the impact of risk factors on mother and child psychological health. This study examines predictors of mother-child interaction quality and child attachment security in a sample of first-time mothers with psychosocial and/or socio-demographic risk factors. Forty primiparous women satisfying specific risk criteria participated in a longitudinal study with their children from pregnancy until 18 month of child age. A multiple psychological and socioeconomic assessment was performed. The Emotional Availability Scales were used to measure the quality of emotional exchanges between mother and child at 12 months and the Attachment Q-Sort served as a measure of child attachment security at 18 months. Results highlight both the effect of specific single factors, considered at a continuous level, and the cumulative risk effect of different co-occurring factors, considered at binary level, on mother-child interaction quality and child attachment security. Implication for the selection of inclusion criteria of intervention programs that support parenting skills in at-risk families are discussed.

Human infants' complete dependence on adult caregiving suggests that mechanisms associated with adult responsiveness to infant cues might be deeply embedded in the brain. Behavioural and neuroimaging research has produced converging evidence for adults' positive disposition to infant cues, but these studies have not investigated directly the valence of adults' reactions, how they are moderated by biological and social factors, and if they relate to child caregiving. This study examines implicit affective responses of 90 adults toward faces of human and non-human (cats and dogs) infants and adults. Implicit reactions were assessed with Single Category Implicit Association Tests, and reports of childrearing behaviours were assessed by the Parental Style Questionnaire. The results showed that human infant faces represent highly biologically relevant stimuli that capture attention and are implicitly associated with positive emotions. This reaction holds independent of gender and parenthood status and is associated with ideal parenting behaviors.

Infant cries are a critical survival mechanism that draw the attention of adult caregivers, who can then satisfy the basic needs of otherwise helpless infants. Here, we used functional neuroimaging to investigate the effects of infant hunger cries on brain activity of adults who were in a cognitively non-demanding mental state of awake rest. We found that the brains of males and females, independent of parental status (parent or non parent), reacted differently to infant cries. Specifically, dorsal medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate areas, known to be involved in mind-wandering (the stream of thought typical of awake rest), remained active in men during exposure to infant cries, whereas in women activity in these regions decreased. These results reveal gender-dependent modulation of brain responses to infant requests to be fed, and specifically they indicate that women interrupt mind-wandering when exposed to the sounds of infant hunger cries, whereas men carry on without interruption.

This study used fMRI to measure brain activity during adult processing of cries of infants with autistic disorder (AD) compared to cries of typically developing (TD) infants. Using whole brain analysis, we found that cries of infants with AD compared to those of TD infants elicited enhanced activity in brain regions associated with verbal and prosodic processing, perhaps because altered acoustic patterns of AD cries render them especially difficult to interpret, and increased activity in brain regions associated with emotional processing, indicating that AD cries also elicit more negative feelings and may be perceived as more aversive and/or arousing. Perceived distress engendered by AD cries related to increased activation in brain regions associated with emotional processing. This study supports the hypothesis that cry is an early and meaningful anomaly displayed by children with AD. It could be that cries associated with AD alter parent-child interactions much earlier than the time that reliable AD diagnosis normally occurs.

Objective We initiated a prospective study of very young children with cancer, in comparison with matched healthy children, to investigate neurodevelopmental consequences of non-CNS cancers and treatment. Methods A total of 61 children (≤42 months) with non-CNS cancers and 61 matched controls underwent an identical age-appropriate neuropsychological test battery. Results Children with cancer manifested deficits compared to healthy controls in motor, mental, and language development, but were similar to controls in cognitive representational abilities and emotional relationships in interaction with their mothers. Better physician-rated health status at diagnosis and mother-rated behavioral status 1 month prior to assessment were associated with better motor and mental performance in the cancer group. Conclusions This study identifies deficits as well as spared functions in children with non-CNS cancers; the results suggest ways parents and healthcare professionals may plan specific remediations to enhance quality of life in young cancer survivors.

BACKGROUND: Through play children exercise their emerging mental abilities, and for their part, when in collaborative play, caregivers often adjust their behaviours to assist their children's progress. In this study, we focused on comparisons between play of Down Syndrome (DS) children with their two parents as well as on comparisons between the two parents' play behaviours. METHOD: Altogether 40 parent-child dyads participated: 20 children with DS (M age = 36.14 months) with their mothers and separately with their fathers. We coded participants' play behaviours during child solitary and mother-child and father-child collaborative sessions. RESULTS: Although children increased exploratory play from solitary to collaborative sessions with both parents, symbolic play increased only during joint play with fathers. Fathers displayed less symbolic and more exploratory activity compared to mothers. Mothers and fathers alike were attuned to their children, although fathers showed a higher degree of attunement. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that maternal and paternal contributions to DS child play skills are positive but different. During collaborative play children received specific and nonoverlapping scaffolding from their two parents, and fathers' contributions were unique.

This study used a cross-national framework to examine country, region, and gender differences in emotional availability (EA), a prominent index of mutual socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Altogether 220 Argentine, Italian, and U.S. mothers and their daughters and sons from both rural and metropolitan areas took part in home observations when the children were 20 months old. In terms of country, Italian mothers were more sensitive and optimally structuring, and Italian children were more responsive and involving, than Argentine and U.S. dyads. In terms of region, rural mothers were more intrusive than metropolitan mothers, and boys from metropolitan areas were more responsive than boys from rural areas. In terms of gender, mothers of girls were more sensitive and optimally structuring than mothers of boys, and daughters were more responsive and involving than sons. Understanding how country, region, and gender influence EA exposes forces that shape child development, parent-infant interaction, and family systems.

School inclusion of students with disabilities in ordinary classes is a multidimensional phenomena that may be evaluated with respect to different dimensions: social acceptance, social interactions, and supports toward the student with disabilities, teachers’ and parents’ attitudes toward inclusion, and students’ mental representations of the peer with disabilities. The purpose of the present review is to present several methods for evaluating school inclusion: sociometric techniques, systematic observation, questionnaires, and student drawings. Additionally, an integrated use of these methods is presented to plan interventions to facilitate school integration.