Development of Self-regulation in High Risk Infants

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究探讨不同新生儿医疗风险水平的高危婴儿自我调节发展的早期社会生理过程及其与母婴依恋和认知发展的关系。该研究采用纵向设计，跟踪婴儿从出院到两岁（校正胎龄），并使用多种方法在多种情况下从儿童和家庭收集数据。这项研究有四个具体目标：(1)研究高危婴儿自我调节的3个言语前预测因子，包括神经生理调节（早期心肺过程）、相互调节质量（亲子互动）和婴儿自我调节倾向（气质）；(2)研究亲子互动质量随时间的变化在母婴特征与婴儿认知和社会结局之间的中介作用；(3)确定不同风险水平和气质的婴儿是否对与慢性母亲抑郁相关的负性养育存在差异易感性；(4)确定依恋、认知能力和自我调节在高危婴儿中的关系。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This study investigates early social and physiological processes involved in the development of self regulation and its relation to infant-mother attachment and cognitive development in high risk infants who vary in their level of neonatal medical risk. The research has a longitudinal design that follows infants from hospital discharge until they are 2 years (corrected for gestational age) and involves data collected from children and families using multiple methods in multiple contexts. The study has 4 specific aims: (1) to examine 3 preverbal predictors of high risk infants' self-regulation, including neurophysiological modulation (early cardiorespiratory processes), quality of mutual regulation (parent-infant interaction), and infant self regulatory disposition (temperament), (2) to investigate parent-infant interaction quality over time as a mediator of the relation between infant/maternal characteristics and infants' cognitive and social outcomes, (3) to identify whether infants varying in risk levels and temperament are differentially susceptible to negative parenting associated with chronic maternal depression, and (4) to identify relations among attachment, cognitive abilities, and self-regulation in high risk infants. The proposed investigation will advance the field of developmental psychopathology by examining longitudinal processes involved in the development of early self-regulation and will extend our knowledge in 3 ways: (1) identification of how infants' perinatal medical risks and early heart rate variability directly and indirectly predict developmental outcomes, (2) testing a model that specifies parent-infant interaction quality as a mediator of the relation between infant neonatal risks, maternal depressive symptoms, and infant developmental outcomes, which has implications for preventive interventions with high risk infants, and (3) identification of relations among self-regulational capacities, attachment relationships and cognitive development in high risk infants, which may provide suggestions for extending developmental follow-up evaluations of NICU graduates to include screening dyadic interactions.