Cardiac Vagal Tone and Quality of Parenting Show Concurrent and Time-Ordered Associations That Diverge in Abusive, Neglectful, and Non-Maltreating Mothers.

Concurrent and lagged maternal respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was monitored in the context of parenting. One hundred and forty-one preschooler-mother dyads-involved with child welfare as documented perpetrators of child abuse or neglect, or non-maltreating (non-CM)-were observed completing a resting baseline and joint challenge task. Parenting behaviors were coded using SASB (Benjamin, 1996) and maternal RSA was simultaneously monitored, longitudinally-nested within-person (WP), and subjected to MLM.

Heterogeneity in Maltreated and Non-maltreated Preschool Children's Inhibitory Control: The Interplay Between Parenting Quality and Child Temperament.

This study examined the contribution of child temperament, parenting, and their interaction on inhibitory control development in a sample of maltreated and non-maltreated preschool children. One hundred and eighteen mother-child dyads were drawn from predominantly low-income, rural communities. Dyads participated in a laboratory session in which maternal warm autonomy support, warm guidance, and strict/hostile control were observationally coded during a joint teaching task.

Early adversity, RSA, and inhibitory control: evidence of children's neurobiological sensitivity to social context.

This study examined parasympathetic physiology as a moderator of the effects of early adversity (i.e., child abuse and neglect) on children's inhibitory control.

Mapping cardiac physiology and parenting processes in maltreating mother-child dyads.

Child maltreatment (CM) lies on an extreme end of the continuum of parenting-at-risk, and while CM has been linked with a variety of behavioral indicators of dysregulation in children, less is known about how physiological markers of regulatory capacity contribute to this association. The present study examined patterns of mother and child physiological regulation and their relations with observed differences in parenting processes during a structured interaction. Abusing, neglecting, and non-CM mothers and their 3- to 5-year-old children completed a resting baseline and moderately challenging joint task.