Research on the acoustic characteristics of Infant Directed Speech (IDS) in North American English indicates that it is generally higher-pitched than Adult Directed Speech (ADS) and has unique prosodic characteristics, which is commonly found across many spoken languages. However, very little research has addressed another important aspect of…

Emphasis on continuous infant sleep overnight may be driven by parental concern of risk to child mental health outcomes. The Mercy Pregnancy and Emotional Wellbeing Study (MPEWS) examined whether infant sleep at 6 and 12 months postpartum predicts anxiety disorders at 2-4 years, and whether this is moderated by maternal depression, active physical…

A complex dynamic systems perspective was applied to explore how mother and child mutually shape interpersonal coordination. Applying a microanalytic design, this study examined the moment-to-moment interaction behavior of 39 Dutch mothers and their three- and four-year-old children (53.8% girls, predominantly White) during a collaboration task.…

This longitudinal study explored whether there are differences between the associations of perceived paternal and maternal emotional warmth to Chinese adolescents' academic burnout. It also investigated whether emotional stability mediates the potential association of perceived parental emotional warmth and academic burnout. Four scales were used…

Depression in mothers is consistently associated with reduced caregiving sensitivity and greater infant negative affect expression. The current article examined the real-time behavioral mechanisms underlying these associations using Granger causality time series analyses in a sample of mothers (N = 194; 86.60% White) at elevated risk for…

Parenting and children's temperament are important influences on language development. However, temperament may reflect prior parenting, and parenting effects may reflect genes common to parents and children. In 561 U.S. adoptees (57% male) and their birth and rearing parents (70% and 92% White, 13% and 4% African American, and 7% and 2% Latinx,…

This study examined gene-environment correlation (rGE) in intellectual and academic development in 561 U.S.-based adoptees (57% male; 56% non-Latinx White, 19% multiracial, 13% Black or African American, 11% Latinx) and their birth and adoptive parents between 2003 and 2017. Birth mother intellectual and academic performance predicted adoptive…

Emotion regulation is one of the important skills helping children and parents to deal with stressful conditions within the family context during the pandemic. We aimed to investigate whether mothers' emotion regulation strategies before COVID-19 and their COVID-19-related anxiety would predict children's sadness regulation during the pandemic…

Emotional availability of parents plays a crucial role in the psychological well-being and development of adolescents. However, previous studies have primarily focused on assessing maternal emotional availability. The Lum Emotional Availability of Parents (LEAP) scale was developed, considering both mothers' and fathers' emotional availability.…

Infant-directed speech (IDS) is characterized by a range of register-typical characteristics. Many of those can be objectively measured, such as acoustic-prosodic and structural-linguistic modifications. Perceived vocal affect, however, is a socio-emotional IDS characteristic and is subjectively assessed. Vocal affect goes beyond acoustic-prosodic…

Emotion regulation (ER) is a source of risk and resilience for psychological development and everyday functioning. Despite extensive research on various early contextual predictors of child ER capacity, few studies have integrated them into the same study. Therefore, our longitudinal study investigated the joint and independent contributions of…

Parents' socialization beliefs have implications for the psychological adjustment of their children through their parenting behaviors; however, such pathways have rarely been established among Chinese American families. The present study examined how Chinese American parents' goals for their children to take on bicultural values and behaviors…

Research Findings: Immigrant families who represent a growing share of the early schooling population face unique challenges related to involvement in their children's education. This study examined whether and to what extent home-based parent involvement and parental warmth are associated with the socio-emotional and academic outcomes of children…