MATERNAL RESPONSIVITY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN WITH FXS

A.具体目标

A. SPECIFIC AIMS There is a substantial and growing body of evidence that cumulative exposure to a stable, highly responsive parenting style throughout the early childhood period is associated with a variety of child benefits in terms of language, cognitive, emotional, and social development (Landry, Smith, Miller-Loncar, & Swank, 1998; Landry, Smith, Swank, Assel & Vellet, 2001; Tamis-LeMonda, Bornstein, & Baumwell, 2001). More recently experimental evidence of a causal role for responsiveness in terms of growth in child social, emotional, communication and cognitive competence has been reported (Landry, Smith, Swank, Assel, & Gunnewig, 2006). Conversely, there is also substantial evidence that long-term exposure to a harsh and/or unresponsive and directive parenting style is associated with sub-optimal outcomes across the same developmental domains (Hart & Risley, 1995; Bates, Pettit, Dodge, & Ridge, 1998). Parenting style itself can be affected by a number of variables including parental emotional state (e.g., depression, stress), beliefs and values, maternal education level as well as variables such as the child's temperament and developmental level (Bornstein, 1995; Shapiro, Blacher & Lopez, 1998). We view maternal responsivity as a dynamic construct of central importance to optimal parenting during the early childhood years and perhaps beyond. We presume, based on both theory and a substantial amount of previous research that the impact of maternal responsivity is cumulative and plays out over many years. Maternal responsivity is a broad construct and part of a parent's overall parenting style. It can be measured in a number of ways and likewise can influence development along a number of dimensions. Furthermore, maternal responsivity is not necessarily a fixed or stable parent attribute, but instead one that may vary and change for a variety of reasons in important and substantial ways over time (Landry et al., 2001). Our research indicates that maternal responsivity may also play a substantial role in the development of young children with fragile X syndrome (FXS). For example, we have found that maternal responsivity predicts child language growth in young children with FXS and accounts for a substantial amount of variance in certain important measures. This relationship is remarkably strong even after controlling for children's developmental level. This and related findings presented in the Progress Report Section below have important implications both for understanding the environmental forces that shaped the long-term outcomes of children with FXS and also because there is substantial evidence that maternal responsivity can be modified via intervention. This project focuses on the relationship between maternal responsivity/parenting style and the language, cognitive, social, and emotional development of children with FXS as the children move from early to middle childhood. The three overarching goals of this project are: 1) to determine whether and in what ways maternal responsivity contributes to the language, cognitive, social, and emotional development of children with FXS; 2) to determine what child factors influence maternal responsivity during this period; and 3) to determine how parenting style, especially responsivity, changes as children with FXS move from early to middle childhood and, if there are style changes, how does the mother's perception of these changes relate to changes in the child's behavior and development. The proposed research grows directly from the findings of our currently funded longitudinal research with the same cohort of children and families during their early childhood and in this respect represents the logical continuation of this work. To achieve the three goals of this project, nine specific aims will be pursued in the course of continuing our longitudinal research from early childhood to middle childhood with 55 families of a child with FXS. We have already completed the collection and analysis of data from two occasions with this sample and are nearing completion of the third data collection with our present funding. We propose to collect data on two additional occasions during the middle childhood period with these children and their mothers. Our goals and aims grow directly from the analyses we have completed to date.