Infant Effortful Control Mediates Relations Between Nondirective Parenting and Internalising-Related Child Behaviours in an Autism-Enriched Infant Cohort

Smith, CG; Jones, EJH; Wass, SV; Pasco, G; Johnson, MH; Charman, T; Wan, MW; Baron-Cohen, S; Blasi, A; Bolton, P; Chandler, S; Cheung, C; Davies, K; Elsabbagh, M; Fernandes, J; Gammer, I; Garwood, H; Gliga, T; Green, J; Guiraud, J; Hudry, Kristelle; Liew, M; Lloyd-Fox, S; Maris, H; O’Hara, L; Pickles, A; Ribeiro, H; Salomone, E; Tucker, L; Volein, A

doi:10.26181/20525616.v1

1182535_Smith,C_2022.pdf (816.93 kB)

Infant Effortful Control Mediates Relations Between Nondirective Parenting and Internalising-Related Child Behaviours in an Autism-Enriched Infant Cohort

journal contribution

posted on 2022-08-22, 06:14 authored by CG Smith, EJH Jones, SV Wass, G Pasco, MH Johnson, T Charman, MW Wan, S Baron-Cohen, A Blasi, P Bolton, S Chandler, C Cheung, K Davies, M Elsabbagh, J Fernandes, I Gammer, H Garwood, T Gliga, J Green, J Guiraud, Kristelle HudryKristelle Hudry, M Liew, S Lloyd-Fox, H Maris, L O’Hara, A Pickles, H Ribeiro, E Salomone, L Tucker, A Volein

Internalising problems are common within Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD); early intervention to support those with emerging signs may be warranted. One promising signal lies in how individual differences in temperament are shaped by parenting. Our longitudinal study of infants with and without an older sibling with ASD investigated how parenting associates with infant behavioural inhibition (8–14 months) and later effortful control (24 months) in relation to 3-year internalising symptoms. Mediation analyses suggest nondirective parenting (8 months) was related to fewer internalising problems through an increase in effortful control. Parenting did not moderate the stable predictive relation of behavioural inhibition on later internalising. We discuss the potential for parenting to strengthen protective factors against internalising in infants from an ASD-enriched cohort.

Funding

This research was funded by the UK Medical Research Council (G0701484 & MR/K021389/1) and supported by the BASIS funding consortium led by Autistica (www.basisnetwork.org). The research leading to these results also received support from the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement number 115300, including financial contribution from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) and EFPIA companies' in-kind contribution. The Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) London Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Doctoral Training Partnership (LISS DTP) also contributed funding that was necessary to this work.

History

Publication Date

2022-08-01

Journal

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Volume

52

Issue

8

Pagination

16p. (p. 3496-3511)

Publisher

Springer

ISSN

0162-3257

Rights Statement

© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.