About this srcd poster session

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Panel information
Panel 14. Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

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Background: Early interactions with the parent provide the child with the framework for dyadic social behaviors that will impact important developmental outcomes, such as communication, cooperative behaviors, and empathy, throughout life (Feldman, 2007). Although naturalistic parent-infant freeplay interactions have been studied extensively, little research has considered dyadic behaviors in the context of a goal-oriented cooperative task during the first two years of life. In the current study, we aim to explore how parent and infant behaviors during a cooperative task may influence success towards a common goal during play.

Method: 18 infants (14 – 23 months; male = 6) and their parents (21 – 46 years; male = 2) participated in a four-minute goal-oriented cooperative task. During the task, parents were given an age-appropriate shape sorter and were asked to complete the shape sorter with their child. If they completed the task prior to four-minutes, they were told to dump out the shapes and begin the task again. Trained coders used the Coding Interactive Behavior (CIB) scale (Feldman, 1998) to code parent limit setting and child compliance from the video recordings of the session. A separate group of coders identified the following using our team’s own criteria for completion of the cooperative task: 1) Attempt: an initiation by infant or parent to place the shape into the shape sorter box, 2) Successful attempt: shape was placed into the box successfully through the correct slot, 3) Unsuccessful attempt: attempt was made to place the shape into the box but was not successful.

Analyses: Rates of success (successful attempts: total attempts) and unsuccessful attempts (unsuccessful attempts: total attempts) were calculated. Spearman’s correlations were conducted to test the association between parent limit-setting and the rates of success and unsuccessful attempts. Spearman’s correlations were also conducted to test the association between child compliance and the rates of success and unsuccessful attempts.
Results: The results demonstrate that parent limit setting is significantly and negatively associated with the rate of unsuccessful attempts (r = -.454, p = .029), but not significantly associated with the rate of success (r = .357, p = .073). Child compliance is significantly and positively associated with the rate of success (r = .448, p = .031), but not significantly associated with the rate of unsuccessful attempts (r = -.214, p = .197).

Conclusion: Dyads with parents that provide more structure (consistent parenting style, persistence towards a common task, and limiting of inappropriate behaviors) during goal-oriented cooperative tasks demonstrate a lower proportion of unsuccessful attempts than those with parents that provide less structure do. Additionally, dyads with children that demonstrate more compliant behaviors (compliance with parent’s requests and persistence towards the common task) demonstrate a higher proportion of successful attempts: total attempts than dyads with less compliant infants do. These findings suggest that parent limit setting and child compliance behaviors, observed as early as infancy, are implicated in cooperation and goal achievement. These findings may hold important implications clinicians that are seeking to improve parent-child interactions and promote child social and cognitive outcomes.

Author information

Author	Role
Lindsey Riera-Gomez, Florida Atlantic University	Presenting author
Alex Petrisor, Florida Atlantic University	Non-presenting author
Teresa Wilcox, Florida Atlantic University	Non-presenting author

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