MATERNAL COGNITION AND STRUCTURING OF TODDLER ATTENTION
Open Access
- Author:
- Reitz, Elizabeth Buckley
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- October 16, 2009
- Committee Members:
- Pamela Marie Cole, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Pamela Marie Cole, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Douglas Michael Teti, Committee Member
Sandra T Azar, Committee Member
Susan S Woodhouse, Committee Member - Keywords:
- toddler attention
maternal cognition - Abstract:
- Maternal sensitivity in the home, maternal behaviors that structured toddler attention skills in the laboratory, and the complexity with which mothers conceptualized their toddlers were examined in 120 mother-child dyads when children were 18 and 24 months old. Maternal structuring behaviors were coding during a laboratory reading and wait task. The goals of the study were to demonstrate that maternal structuring of child attention was an element of maternal sensitivity (as rated in the home and in the lab) during the toddler years, and to explicate the specific behavioral strategies mothers used to structure their toddlers’ attention. Further, it was predicted that maternal conceptual complexity would relate to such high quality maternal structuring strategies. Results indicated that maternal structuring of child attention focusing was an element of sensitivity (as rated in the home and in the lab) within both tasks, and that redirection of child attention was negatively associated with sensitivity in the reading task. The quality of structuring in the lab was also positively associated with encouragement of attention distraction in the 18 and 24 month wait task. In regards to the specific strategies mothers used to accomplish this structuring, in the reading task when children were 18 and 24 months old, greater maternal use of her positive emotion and physical movement were related to independent ratings of maternal sensitivity. In the wait task when children were 18 and 24 months old, greater maternal use of her positive emotion was associated with sensitivity. The quality of maternal structuring within both tasks was also related to greater use of positive emotion in both tasks at both ages and greater physical movement in the 24 reading task. Additionally, structuring quality was associated with greater language in the 18 month reading task. Within the 18 month time point, conceptual complexity predicted greater sensitivity and higher quality structuring, significantly in the reading task and marginally in the wait task. Results were discussed in regards to implications for the design of interventions designed to improve maternal sensitivity with toddlers.