About this session

Friday, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Multimethod Approaches to Examining Associations between Early Caregiver Unpredictability and Developmental Outcomes

Predictability of early caregiver inputs plays a critical role in the development of cognitive and emotional circuitry (Davis & Glynn, 2024). This symposium takes a multimethod approach to investigate different mechanisms by which unpredictability in caregiver signals during pregnancy and infancy may impact developmental outcomes. This international symposium brings together studies from diverse and global samples, including findings from South Africa, Malawi, Finland and the United States. The first paper identifies sex-specific associations between prenatal maternal mood unpredictability and adolescent anhedonia in a sample of mother-child dyads in the United States, extending prior work conducted in animal studies. The second paper examines associations between prenatal substance use and maternal unpredictability in a longitudinal study oversampled for prenatal substance use, and their implications for infant negative affect. The third paper includes caregiver-infant dyads in South Africa and Malawi and demonstrates links between unpredictable caregiver signals and infant attention and statistical learning, utilizing measures such as infant gaze and EEG. The fourth paper examines how caregiver sensory signal unpredictability is associated with regulation and behavioral profiles of executive functioning in a sample from Finland. Taken together, the talks in this symposium will highlight the importance of considering early life caregiver unpredictability as a form of early life adversity that has implications for both behavioral and neural indices of cognitive and socioemotional development.

Paper #1
Title	Sex-specific implications of unpredictable prenatal maternal mood for adolescent anhedonia
Presenting author	Anna M. Zhou, Ph.D., University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, United States

Paper #2
Title	Maternal Unpredictability in the Context of Prenatal Substance Exposure: Implications for Infant Negative Affect
Presenting author	Madison Rachel Kelm, The Pennsylvania State University, United States

Paper #3
Title	Moment-to-moment fluctuations in caregiver entropy shape the temporal dynamics of infant attention and statistical learning
Presenting author	Tess Allegra Forest, Columbia University, United States

Paper #4
Title	Associations Between Unpredictable Maternal Sensory Signals and Children's Cognitive Self-Regulation from Infancy to Age 5
Presenting author	Fiia Takio, University of Turku, Finland

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Session chair
Anna M. Zhou, Ph.D., University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, United States

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