Dataset Information

Children's history of suicidal ideation and synchrony of facial displays of affect during mother-child interactions.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Suicidal thoughts and behavior can begin early in childhood and are a leading cause of death in youth. Although specific mechanisms of risk remain largely unknown, theorists and researchers highlight the importance of the parent-child relationship. The current study focused on one aspect of this relationship: the dynamic exchange of facial affect during interactions. Specifically, we examined the relation between children's history of suicidal ideation (SI) and synchrony of facial expressions during positive and negative mother-child interactions.

Methods

Participants were 353 mother-child dyads. Of these, 44 dyads included a child with an SI history. Dyads engaged in positive and negative discussions during which their facial electromyography was recorded from mothers and children to index second-to-second changes in positive (zygomaticus) and negative (corrugator) facial affect.

Results

Child SI dyads were characterized specifically by reduced synchrony of positive facial affect during the positive discussion compared to dyads without child SI.

Conclusions

These findings suggest child SI dyads exhibit reduced synchrony of normative positive expressions during mother-child interactions. If replicated and extended in longitudinal research, these results may help to explain one mechanism of risk among children with SI.

SUBMITTER: James KM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7483382 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundAssessment of mother-child interactions is a core issue of early child development and psychopathology. This paper focuses on the concept of "synchrony" and examines (1) how synchrony in mother-child interaction is defined and operationalized; (2) the contribution that the concept of synchrony has brought to understanding the nature of mother-child interactions.MethodBetween 1977 and 2013, we searched several databases using the following key-words: "synchrony" "interaction" and "mother-child". We focused on studies examining parent-child interactions among children aged 2 months to 5 years. From the 63 relevant studies, we extracted study description variables (authors, year, design, number of subjects, age); assessment conditions and modalities; and main findings.ResultsThe most common terms referring to synchrony were mutuality, reciprocity, rhythmicity, harmonious interaction, turn-taking and shared affect; all terms were used to characterize the mother-child dyad. As a consequence, we propose defining synchrony as a dynamic and reciprocal adaptation of the temporal structure of behaviors and shared affect between interactive partners. Three main types of assessment methods for studying synchrony emerged: (1) global interaction scales with dyadic items; (2) specific synchrony scales; and (3) micro-coded time-series analyses. It appears that synchrony should be regarded as a social signal per se as it has been shown to be valid in both normal and pathological populations. Better mother-child synchrony is associated with familiarity (vs. unknown partner), a healthy mother (vs. pathological mother), typical development (vs. psychopathological development), and a more positive child outcomes.DiscussionSynchrony is a key feature of mother-infant interactions. Adopting an objective approach in studying synchrony is not a simple task given available assessment tools and due to its temporality and multimodal expression. We propose an integrative approach combining clinical observation and engineering techniques to improve the quality of synchrony analysis.