Caregiver-Child Communication Following Child Maltreatment: A Dynamic Systems Approach
Open Access
- Author:
- Olson, Anneke
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 06, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Douglas Teti, Program Head/Chair
Jennie Noll, Major Field Member
Chad Shenk, Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Sy-Miin Chow, Major Field Member
Sunny Bai, Major Field Member
Martha Wadsworth, Outside Unit & Field Member - Keywords:
- Child maltreatment
Emotion Regulation
Caregiver-Child Relationships
Dynamic Systems - Abstract:
- Child maltreatment, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect, is a prevalent public health concern (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2024) associated with a host of adverse health consequences (Gilbert et al., 2009) and substantial cost to society (Peterson et al., 2018). Difficulties in emotion regulation are one well-established outcome of child maltreatment (Gruhn & Compas, 2020), and emotion regulation is also a demonstrated transdiagnostic pathway through which child maltreatment influences other long-term harmful sequelae (Jennissen et al., 2016; Weissman et al., 2019). Yet not all children who experience child maltreatment have emotion regulation difficulties. This suggests important mediational pathways that explain risk and resilience in emotion regulation outcomes following child maltreatment. However, the pathways underlying the association between child maltreatment and emotion regulation remain largely unknown despite their potential to provide clear intervention targets for the child maltreatment population. Informed by the Biosocial Theory of Emotion Regulation (Fruzzetti & Shenk, 2008; Linehan, 1997), this dissertation examines a specific class of caregiving behaviors—validating and invalidating behaviors—and their dynamic associations with child positive and negative affect in real-time as a potential putative mediator of the child maltreatment and emotion regulation association. This dissertation leveraged data from Penn State Child Health Study (CHS; Schreier et al., 2021), an ongoing prospective longitudinal study of the impact of child maltreatment on child health and development. A sample of CHS participants (n = 408) served as the analytic sample. For this dissertation, observational data from the (n = 408) caregiver-child dyads in the analytic sample were reliably coded in 30-second epochs across 21 minutes of conversation on relationship-enhancing and problem solving topics for 1) caregiver validating behaviors, 2) caregiver invalidating behaviors, 3) child positive affect, and 4) child negative affect. Aim 1 of this dissertation was to examine intra-individual variability in each of the four dependent variables of interest across relationship-enhancing and problem-solving discussions and to examine whether this intra-individual variability differed according to confirmed child maltreatment status. Results of Aim 1 suggested that levels of intra-individual variability varied across task content. Also, dyads with a confirmed history of child maltreatment had significantly more intra-individual variability in caregiver invalidation and child negative affect across caregiver-child interaction compared to those with no history of child maltreatment. Aim 2 used a series of 2-level bivariate dynamic structural equation models (DSEMs) to examine the fixed, within-dyad dynamics between caregiver validation and invalidation and child positive and negative affect across dyadic communication tasks. Results showed robust findings for significant, positive autoregressive effects for all variables. In addition, there were several significant cross-regressive effects: invalidation at time t -1 was negatively related to subsequent child positive affect, and child negative affect at time t -1 was positively related to subsequent higher levels of both caregiver validation and invalidation. Aim 3 examined whether any of the cross-regressive effects between caregiver behaviors and child affect mediated the association between confirmed child maltreatment and future youth emotion regulation. There was no evidence of mediation by caregiver-child dynamics when assessed in 30-second epochs. The results of this dissertation highlight the need to further explore the timescale at which these particular caregiver-child communication dynamics may be related to child emotion regulation. Future research should also investigate other potential mediators that explain risk and resilience in emotion regulation outcomes following child abuse and neglect.