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Parental embodied mentalizing: how the nonverbal dance between parents and infants predicts children’s socio-emotional functioning

Parental embodied mentalizing: how the nonverbal dance between parents and infants predicts... Parental mentalizing – the parent’s ability to envision the child’s mental states (such as desires, thoughts, or wishes) – has been argued to underlie a parent’s ability to respond sensitively to their child’s emotional needs, and thereby promote advantageous cognitive and socio-emotional development. Mentalizing is typically operationalized in terms of how parents talk to or about their infants. This work extends research on mentalizing by operationalizing parental mentalizing exclusively in terms of nonverbal, bodily based, interactive behavior, namely parental embodied mentalizing(PEM). The purpose of the current research was twofold: (1) to establish the reliability and validity of the PEM coding system; and (2) to evaluate whether such measurement predicts infant and child cognitive and socio-emotional functioning. Assessing 200 mother–infant dyads at 6 months using the coding of PEM proved both reliable and valid, including predicting child attachment security at 15 and 36 months, and language abilities, academic skills, behavior problems, and social competence at 54 months, in many cases even after taking into consideration traditional measures of parenting, namely maternal sensitivity. Conceptual, empirical, and clinical implications are discussed. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Attachment & Human Development Taylor & Francis

Parental embodied mentalizing: how the nonverbal dance between parents and infants predicts children’s socio-emotional functioning

Shai, Dana; Belsky, Jay
Attachment & Human Development , Volume 19 (2): 29 – Mar 4, 2017
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Parental embodied mentalizing: how the nonverbal dance between parents and infants predicts children’s socio-emotional functioning

Abstract

Parental mentalizing – the parent’s ability to envision the child’s mental states (such as desires, thoughts, or wishes) – has been argued to underlie a parent’s ability to respond sensitively to their child’s emotional needs, and thereby promote advantageous cognitive and socio-emotional development. Mentalizing is typically operationalized in terms of how parents talk to or about their infants. This work extends research on mentalizing by operationalizing...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
ISSN
1469-2988
eISSN
1461-6734
DOI
10.1080/14616734.2016.1255653
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Parental mentalizing – the parent’s ability to envision the child’s mental states (such as desires, thoughts, or wishes) – has been argued to underlie a parent’s ability to respond sensitively to their child’s emotional needs, and thereby promote advantageous cognitive and socio-emotional development. Mentalizing is typically operationalized in terms of how parents talk to or about their infants. This work extends research on mentalizing by operationalizing parental mentalizing exclusively in terms of nonverbal, bodily based, interactive behavior, namely parental embodied mentalizing(PEM). The purpose of the current research was twofold: (1) to establish the reliability and validity of the PEM coding system; and (2) to evaluate whether such measurement predicts infant and child cognitive and socio-emotional functioning. Assessing 200 mother–infant dyads at 6 months using the coding of PEM proved both reliable and valid, including predicting child attachment security at 15 and 36 months, and language abilities, academic skills, behavior problems, and social competence at 54 months, in many cases even after taking into consideration traditional measures of parenting, namely maternal sensitivity. Conceptual, empirical, and clinical implications are discussed.

Journal

Attachment & Human Development – Taylor & Francis

Published: Mar 4, 2017

Keywords: Mentalizing; parent–infant; nonverbal; maternal sensitivity; attachment security; externalizing

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