● Malmberg, L. E., Lewis, S., West, A., Murray, E., Sylva, K., & Stein, A. (2016). The
influence of mothers’ and fathers’ sensitivity in the first year of life on children’s
cognitive outcomes at 18 and 36 months. Child: Care, Health, and Development, 42,
1-7.
,The influence of mothers’ and fathers’ sensitivity in the first year of life on children’s
cognitive outcomes at 18 and 36 months
Malmberg et al., 2015
Introduction
Since the importance of parent-child relationships was established by the work of Bowlby
and others, the last two decades have seen an increase in research into the respective roles
of both mothers and fathers in child development. It is now established that the quality of
early parent-child relationships does have an influence on later child cognitive and language
development. More remains to be learned, however, about the mechanisms of this effect, the
interplay between the parenting relationships and what aspects may be most amenable to
intervention.
As well as mother-child, the importance of father-child relationships has become increasingly
evident. There has been considerable interest in whether fathers’ and mothers’ relationships
with their children are similar. Most research has focused on attachment styles, which
suggests that maternal and paternal styles are often concordant, but they are not necessarily
so. Furthermore, mothers and fathers have been shown to have similar physiological
responses to infants, but differences in behavioral responses have been demonstrated. This
suggests that the determinants of parental sensitivity and their effects on later development
may differ between father-infant and mother-infant dyads.
One key question is whether and to what extent one sensitive parent can act as a buffer
against the effects of lower levels of sensitivity of the other parent. This would have
important implications for families where the parenting of one parent is affected, because of
mental or physical illness or other stressors. In the present study, it was aimed to explore the
effects of both paternal and maternal sensitivity on child developmental outcomes, and the
ways in which one parent might compensate for the effects of lower sensitivity of the other
parent.
Methods
● Sample: 1201 children, several samples of different sizes, composite variable ‘family
socio-demographic background’
● Procedure: at home, five 2,5-minute consecutive play sessions with different kinds of
toys, independent raters, not the same coder for mother-infant and father-infant
dyads, interrater reliability assessed using kappa statistic
● Measures: parental sensitivity, global sensitivity and facilitation
Results
● Both maternal and paternal sensitivity were positively related to higher cognitive and
language functioning in the child.
● Maternal and paternal sensitivity were not significantly related to each other.
● Socio-demographic background: stronger predictor of mother’s sensitivity than
father’s sensitivity
● Child outcomes: direct path with father sensitivity stronger than with mother
sensitivity
● Mothers’ sensitivity has a stronger effect on the language outcomes of boys than girls
, Discussion
The findings from the current study suggest an interactive model when it comes to the
relative effects of mothers’ and fathers’ early parenting behaviors on child cognitive and
language outcomes. It was found that both maternal and paternal sensitivity are related to
child cognitive outcomes in univariate analyses, but in multivariate path analyses, family
socio-demographic background was strongly associated with maternal, but not paternal
sensitivity. Maternal sensitivity was not related to outcome when socio-demographic factors
were included in the model. Furthermore, interaction effects showed that one sensitive
parent, either mother or father, could compensate for the other parent’s lower sensitivity, but
that sensitive fathers had an additional effect when mothers were also sensitive.
Furthermore, fathers’ sensitivity was more strongly related to child cognitive and language
outcomes than mother’s sensitivity. Fathers’ supportiveness was identified to be associated
with child emotional regulation and orientation management, whereas there was no
association identified with mothers’ supportiveness. Both emotional-regulation and
orientation-engagement are components of self-regulation, which enables children to
perform well in cognitively demanding situations. One possible explanation could be that the
effect of fathers’ sensitivity on child cognitive outcomes may be further enhanced by an
indirect effect mediated by self-regulation.
There are a number of strengths to this study, including its prospective design, direct
observation of both mothers and fathers with their infants in the first year of life and the use
of standardized reliable measures of general cognitive and language development. There
was good retention from the first year to the third year of life, and the sample was fairly
representative. The limitations of the study include the relatively small sample size and that
assessments of maternal and paternal sensitivity were based on a single observational
session. Furthermore the original subsample of fathers was weighted to have a proportion of
fathers who provided a significant amount of principle caregiving to the child.
In conclusion, this study confirms that early paternal sensitivity does have an effect on
children’s language and cognitive development and it appears to be less affected by
socio-demographic background than maternal sensitivity. The data also suggest that
sensitivity on the part of one parent might be able to compensate for reduction in the other
parent’s sensitivity in terms of the effects on language outcome.
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