Maternal Alcohol Dependence Symptoms and Maternal Insensitivity to Children’s Distress nuanced pathways and associations underlying early childhood adjustment

Title: Maternal Alcohol Dependence Symptoms and Maternal Insensitivity to Children’s Distress: nuanced pathways and associations underlying early childhood adjustment

Presenter: Dr. Debrielle T. Jacques, PhD Child Clinical Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Description: Much work has investigated pathways and processes through which maternal sensitivity – mothers’ parenting behaviors that are appropriately attuned and contingently calibrated to meet children’s needs and experiences – influence early child development; however, less work has examined how sensitivity manifests, operates, and influences specific child psychopathology outcomes and trajectories in families featuring maternal alcohol dependence, and especially in situations when mothers are responding to children’s emotional distress (e.g., sadness, fearfulness, etc.). This 2-paper talk, informed by developmental psychology, family processes, and psychopathology frameworks discussed a) both broad and nuanced associations between maternal alcohol dependence and responsivity to child distress cues, and b) how these associations may uniquely affect children’s social-emotional functioning (e.g., engagement in adaptive coping strategies) and psychopathology across early childhood.