The effect of early maternal sensitivity on child academic achievement in primary school

该项目的目的是分析早期母性敏感对孩子学习成绩的影响。具体地说，我们想要评估早期的母亲敏感性是否是儿童小学结束时学习成绩的预测指标，如果是的话，这种关系是否特定于儿童生命头四年的一个或多个年龄点。以前的研究已经报道了母亲的敏感与孩子的社会、情感和认知发展之间的关系。然而，这些研究大多集中在儿童早期到学龄前阶段。在拟议的项目中，将使用情绪可获得性量表(EA Scales；Biringen，2008)对已有的显示5个年龄点(6、12、18个月、3岁和4岁)的母婴游戏互动的视频材料进行编码和分析。孩子的父母将收到问卷，以评估孩子在小学结束时在数学、德语和常识科目(6岁)的成绩。由于先前的研究表明，儿童的智力和语言发展是其学校成绩的有力预测因素，有关儿童在前5个年龄点的认知和语言发展的现有数据将被作为控制变量。拟议项目的另一个目标是通过使用EA量表的敏感度量表，并通过控制儿童的气质，纵向评估儿童生命的头四年中母亲敏感度的稳定性和连续性。对于后者，5个年龄段的父母对各自版本的罗斯巴特儿童行为问卷(IBQ-R，ECBQ，CBQ)进行了评分。总体而言，我们希望拟议的项目将进一步了解母亲的敏感性是否以及在早期发展的什么时候对儿童的学习成绩产生长期影响，以及随着孩子的发展，母亲的敏感性随着需求的变化而发生的变化。

The aim of the proposed project is to analyze the effect of early maternal sensitivity on children’s academic achievement. Specifically, we want to assess whether early maternal sensitivity is a predictor of children’s academic achievement at the end of primary school, and if so, whether this relation is specific to one or more age points during children’s first four years of life. Previous studies have reported relations between maternal sensitivity and children’s social, emotional and cognitive development. However, most of these studies focus on children’s early years up to preschool age. In the proposed project, already available video material showing mother-infant play interactions at 5 age points (6, 12, 18 months, 3 and 4 years) will be coded and analyzed using the Emotional Availability Scales (EA Scales; Biringen, 2008).Children’s parents will be sent questionnaires to assess children’s grades at the end of primary school in the subjects Mathematics, German and General Studies (6th age point). As previous studies have shown that children‘s intelligence and language development are strong predictors of their school grades, available data on children’s cognitive and language development at the first 5 age points will be included as control variables. A further aim of the proposed project is to longitudinally assess stability and continuity of maternal sensitivity during the first four years of children’s life by using the Sensitivity Scale of the EA Scales, and by controlling for child temperament. For the latter, parental ratings on the respective version of Rothbart’s Child Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R, ECBQ, CBQ) are available for each of the 5 age points.Overall, we hope the proposed project will yield further knowledge regarding if, and at what time in early development, maternal sensitivity has long-term effects on children’s academic achievements, and regarding changes in maternal sensitivity in response to changing demands as children develop.