Validation of the Parent Health Locus of Control Scales in an Italian sample

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Aim</p> <p>This study examined the psychometric properties and the replicability of De Vellis's (1993) Parent Health Locus of Control (PHLOC) scales in an Italian sample.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>The Italian version of PHLOC was administered to 470 mothers of birth to 3-year-old children.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Varimax rotated confirmatory factor analysis identified the six original subscales, namely Child, Divine, Fate, Media, Parental, and Professional influences over child health. Internal consistency of the subscales was good (α > .70), and test-retest correlations were adequate (<it>r </it>> .80). More highly educated mothers rated media influence as most important. No differences were found considering children's age, gender, and birth order.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results offer good evidence of the cross-cultural validity of the PHLOC scales, an instrument that can be useful in interventions with families by the health care practitioners to prevent neglectful childrearing practices.</p

Long-term stability of language performance in very preterm, moderate-late preterm, and term children

Objective To investigate whether children born very preterm, moderate-late preterm, and term differ in their average level and individual-difference stability in language performance over time. Study design Language was assessed at 5 and 20 months and 4, 6, and 8 years of age in 204 very preterm (<32 weeks' gestation), 276 moderate-late preterm (32-36 weeks' gestation), and 268 term (37-41 weeks' gestation) children from the Bavarian Longitudinal Study. Results Very preterm children consistently performed worse than term-born children, and moderate-late preterm children scored in between. Language performance was stable from 5 months through 8 years in all gestation groups combined, and stability increased between each succeeding wave. Stability was stronger between 5 months and 4 years in very preterm than moderate-late preterm and term groups, but this differential stability attenuated when covariates (child nonverbal intelligence and family socioeconomic status) were controlled. Conclusions Preterm children, even moderate-late preterm, are at risk for poorer language performance than term-born children. Because individual differences in language performance are increasingly stable from 20 months to 8 years in all gestation groups, pediatricians who attend to preterm children and observe language delays should refer them to language intervention at the earliest age seen

The Influences of Drug Abuse on Mother-Infant Interaction Through the Lens of the Biopsychosocial Model of Health and Illness: A Review

Women who abuse illicit drugs often engage in atypical parenting behaviors that interfere with the natural development of mother-infant interaction and attachment. Maternal caregiving deficits leave pronounced adverse consequences in the wake of drug abuse relapse, which often occurs and in early infancy. These are times when the child requires optimal parental care. The contemporary literature documents long-term implications of illicit drug-abuse in parenting on infants. However, factors that drive and sustain the influence of drug abuse on parent-infant outcomes remain elusive. This review adopts a biopsychosocial approach to synthesizing the existing state of knowledge on this issue. Mother-infant interaction is a dynamic socio-relational process that occurs at multiple levels of organization. As such, a biopsychosocial perspective enables us to uncover: (i) roles of specific physiological mechanisms and biological characteristics of atypical parenting in mothers who abuse drugs, (ii) the influence of drugs on maternal psychological state (i.e., beliefs regarding parenting practices, emotional regulation), and (iii) social relationships (i.e., relationships with spouse and other drug abusers) and contextual cues (i.e., triggers) that moderate non-optimal maternal caregiving. A comprehensive review of these key domains provides a nuanced understanding of how these several sources interdependently shape atypical parent-infant interaction amongst drug abusing mothers. Systematic elucidation of major factors underlying drug-abused maternal behaviors facilitates the development of targeted and more effective interventions

Theory of Mind and diverse intelligences in 4-year-olds: Modelling associations of false beliefs with children’s numerate-spatial, verbal, and social intelligence

Theory of Mind (ToM) and the structure of intelligence were investigated in 115 4-year-olds. Specifically, we asked whether children’s intelligence involves both general and specific aspects and whether standard ToM measures of false belief can serve as indicators of social intelligence. Psychometric intelligence and children’s domain-specific understanding of number concepts and of mental states (false belief) were measured in the laboratory; communication and social skills were assessed through mothers’ report. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed poor fit for a one-factor model, but good fit for a model with three correlated factors, suggesting that children’s intelligence involves both general and specific aspects. Numerate-spatial and verbal intelligence were correlated (.70), and social intelligence correlated to a stronger degree with verbal (.66) than with numerate-spatial intelligence (.37). Laboratory assessment of false belief and mothers’ reports about children’s social skills loaded on a single factor, pointing to real-world consequences of ToM abilities

Parenting attributions and attitudes in cross-cultural perspective

SYNOPSIS Objective. This article used the Parenting Across Cultures Project to evaluate similarities and differences in mean levels and relative agreement between mothers&apos; and fathers&apos; attributions and attitudes in parenting in 9 countries. Design. Mothers and fathers reported their perceptions of causes of successes and failures in caregiving and their progressive versus authoritarian childrearing attitudes. Gender and cultural similarities and differences in parents&apos; attributions and attitudes in 9 countries were analyzed: China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Results. Although mothers and fathers did not differ in any attribution, mothers reported more progressive parenting attitudes and modernity of childrearing attitudes than did fathers, and fathers reported more authoritarian attitudes than did mothers. Country differences also emerged in all attributions and attitudes that were examined. Mothers&apos; and fathers&apos; attributions and their attitudes were moderately correlated, but parenting attitudes were more highly correlated in parents than were attributions. Conclusions. We draw connections among the findings across the 9 countries and outline implications for understanding similarities and differences in mothers&apos; and fathers&apos; parenting attributions and attitudes

Assessing categorization performance at the individual level: A comparison of Monte Carlo Simulation and Probability Estimate Model procedures

a b s t r a c t Two analytical procedures for identifying young children as categorizers, the Monte Carlo Simulation and the Probability Estimate Model, were compared. Using a sequential touching method, children aged 12, 18, 24, and 30 months were given seven object sets representing different levels of categorical classification. From their touching performance, the probability that children were categorizing was then determined independently using Monte Carlo Simulation and the Probability Estimate Model. The two analytical procedures resulted in different percentages of children being classified as categorizers. Results using the Monte Carlo Simulation were more consistent with group-level analyses than results using the Probability Estimate Model. These findings recommend using the Monte Carlo Simulation for determining individual categorizer classification

Predictors of Contemporary under-5 Child Mortality in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Machine Learning Approach

Child Mortality (CM) is a worldwide concern, annually affecting as many as 6.81% children in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). We used data of the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS) (N = 275,160) from 27 LMIC and a machine-learning approach to rank 37 distal causes of CM and identify the top 10 causes in terms of predictive potency. Based on the top 10 causes, we identified households with improved conditions. We retrospectively validated the results by investigating the association between variations of CM and variations of the percentage of households with improved conditions at country-level, between the 2005–2007 and the 2013–2017 administrations of the MICS. A unique contribution of our approach is to identify lesser-known distal causes which likely account for better-known proximal causes: notably, the identified distal causes and preventable and treatable through social, educational, and physical interventions. We demonstrate how machine learning can be used to obtain operational information from big dataset to guide interventions and policy makers

Maternal perinatal mental health and offspring academic achievement at age 16:the mediating role of childhood executive function

Background: Elucidating risk pathways for under-achieving at school can inform strategies to reduce the number of adolescents leaving school without passing grades in core subjects. Maternal depression can compromise the quality of parental care and is associated with multiple negative child outcomes. However, only a few small studies have investigated the association between perinatal maternal depression and poor academic achievement in adolescence. The pathways to explain the risks are also unclear. Method: Prospective observational data from 5,801 parents and adolescents taking part in a large UK population cohort (Avon-Longitudinal-Study-of-Parents-and-Children) were used to test associations between maternal and paternal depression and anxiety in the perinatal period, executive function (EF) at age 8, and academic achievement at the end of compulsory school at age 16. Results: Adolescents of postnatally depressed mothers were 1.5 times (1.19, 1.94, p = .001) as likely as adolescents of nondepressed mothers to fail to achieve a ‘pass’ grade in math; antenatal anxiety was also an independent predictor of poor math. Disruption in different components of EF explained small but significant proportions of these associations: attentional control explained 16% (4%, 27%, p < .001) of the association with postnatal depression, and working memory explained 17% (13%, 30%, p = .003) of the association with antenatal anxiety. A similar pattern was seen for language grades, but associations were confounded by maternal education. There was no evidence that paternal factors were independently associated with impaired child EF or adolescent exams. Conclusion: Maternal postnatal depression and antenatal anxiety are risk factors for adolescents underachieving in math. Preventing, identifying, and treating maternal mental health in the perinatal period could, therefore, potentially increase adolescents’ academic achievement. Different aspects of EF partially mediated these associations. Further work is needed, but if these pathways are causal, improving EF could reduce underachievement in math