The contribution of maternal executive functions and active coping to dyadic affective dynamics: Children with autism spectrum disorder and their mothers

Abstract

Parenting is a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral endeavor, where parents’ control capacities, including executive functions and active control coping, help parents to guide and regulate interactions with their children; yet limited research investigates how these capacities are associated with parent–child affective regulation processes during parent–child interactions. This study examined whether maternal executive functions (sustained attention, interference inhibitory control, working memory) and active engaged coping were related to dyadic affective flexibility and positive mutual affective interactions between mothers and their young children with autism spectrum disorders (N = 40). Dyadic flexibility and mutual positive affect were measured using dynamic systems-based modeling of second-by-second affective patterns during a mother–child interaction. The results showed that higher levels of maternal sustained attention and inhibitory control were related to increased dyadic affective flexibility. In addition, higher levels of maternal sustained attention and higher use of engaged coping were related to dyadic mutual positive affect. The findings highlight the importance of maternal cognitive control capacity in promoting adaptive parent–child dyadic regulatory processes.

Keywords

autism spectrum disorders coping executive function mother–child interaction

Introduction

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have core deficits in the areas of communication and social interaction, as well as restricted, repetitive, stereotyped, and often noncompliant behavior (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). In addition, parents raising a child with ASD may face unique challenges and demands not experienced by parents of typically developing children (Rivard, Terroux, Parent-Boursier, & Mercier, 2014; Tehee, Honan, & Hevey, 2009). They commonly report experiencing high levels of parenting stress (Davis & Carter, 2008; Estes et al., 2013; Zaidman-Zait et al., 2014) and negative emotions in daily interactions with their children (Zhou & Yi, 2014). Parenting coping challenges and children’s core deficits can make parent–child interactions more effortful, as parents are required to be more proactive to engage their ASD children in social interactions, regulate their behaviors, and attend to their needs (Kaale, Smith, Nordahl-Hansen, Fagerland, & Kasari, 2018; Siller, Hutman, & Sigman, 2013). Yet parent–child interactions are extremely important, as they are linked to the development course and outcomes of children with ASD (Clifford & Dissanayake, 2009; Haebig, McDuffie, & Ellis Weismer, 2013; Ruble, McDuffie, King, & Lorenz, 2008; Siller & Sigman, 2008). The importance of parent–child interactions is acknowledged and supported by the increasing number of intervention approaches for children with ASD; these include parent training programs, such as the Child-Directed Interaction intervention (Ginn, Clionsky, Eyberg, Warner-Metzger, & Abner, 2017), and developmental, naturalistic therapies used to treat children with ASD, such as the Early Start Denver Model (Dawson et al., 2010; Ingersoll & Wainer, 2013). The goal is to increase parent–child interactions as positive and rewarding experiences characterized by parental warmth and positive affect and on strengthening the parent–child relationship as a vehicle to promote social and communication learning, as well as skill generalization (Ginn et al., 2017; Masse, McNeil, Wagner, & Quetsch, 2016).

It is difficult to generalize, however, as how parents interact with their children with ASD varies widely, especially along dimensions such as parents’ affect, responsiveness, and directedness (Ruble et al., 2008; Siller & Sigman, 2002, 2008). Previous research has mainly focused on the effect of parent–child interactions on children’s behavioral outcomes (Boonen et al., 2015; Maljaars, Boonen, Lambrechts, Van Leeuwen, & Noens, 2014), with limited critical attention to the variability in parent–child interaction processes. This study begins to fill the gap.

During parent–child interactions, parents and their children respond to one another moment-to-moment (Hollenstein & Lewis, 2006); children alter their behavior in response to parental behavior, while parents attune their behavior to their children’s behavior, aiming at maintaining an optimal positive dyadic engagement (Butler & Randall, 2013; Tronick, 2007). Thus, parent–child interactions represent a dyadic system that is dynamic, tightly coupled, and mutually regulated. These dyadic regulation patterns are also timed-based; they emerge and fade over the course of an interaction (Granic, O’Hara, Pepler, & Lewis, 2007; Hollenstein, Granic, Stoolmiller, & Snyder, 2004). They are distinguished by their affective flexibility, a structural pattern of the parent–child interaction, whereby the dyad can shift between affective expressions moment-to-moment, display a broad emotional repertoire, work through negative emotional states, and preferably return to a neutral or positive affective interaction (Granic et al., 2007; Hollenstein et al., 2004). They are also distinguished by their content patterns, such as an overall mutually congruent expression of positive affect among dyad members (Hollenstein & Lewis, 2006).

Mother–child dyadic affective flexibility and positive mutual affect have been associated with decreased behavioral problems among both typically developing children (Lunkenheimer, Albrecht, & Kemp, 2013; Lunkenheimer, Olson, Hollenstein, Sameroff, & Winter, 2011) and clinically referred children (De Rubeis & Granic, 2012; Granic et al., 2007), and with mothers’ lower levels of depressive symptoms (Coburn, Crnic, & Ross, 2015; Lunkenheimer et al., 2013).

Parent–child dyadic systems depend on input from the biological, attentional, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive capacities of both the parent and the child (Beeghly & Tronick, 2011; Korja, Latva, & Lehtonen, 2012; Lunkenheimer et al., 2013). Hence, factors that may constrain the regulatory capacity of either the parent or the child also constrain the regulation of the dyadic system, altering parent–child interactions and relationships (Feldman, 2007). Accordingly, it is not surprising that the characteristics of children with ASD influence the way their parents behave during parent–child interactions (Beurkens, Hobson, & Hobson, 2013; Dawson, 2008; Haebig et al., 2013; Hobson, Tarver, Beurkens, & Peter Hobson, 2016). However, as young children are still developing their self-regulatory and communicative competencies, parents play a critical role in regulating children’s behaviors, and parent–child interactions tend to be dominated by parents (Beeghly & Tronick, 2011; Tronick & Beeghly, 2011). This is an especially important consideration for parents of children with ASD, as these children have deficits in various developmental domains, including attention, self-regulation, language, and social interaction skills. Previous studies have indicated that mothers are the main contributing factors to the continued engagement of their children with ASD during play activity (Gulsrud, Hellemann, Shire, & Kasari, 2016; Kaale et al., 2018).

Although theorists agree that the parent–child dyad is greater than the sum of its parts (MacPhee, Lunkenheimer, & Riggs, 2015), the majority of studies of parent–child interactions among children with ASD tend to use overall individual-level affective or behavioral content measures (e.g. mean frequencies of parental directives, sensitivity, responsiveness, expression of affect), ignoring structural and content measures of parent–child interactions at the dyadic level (De Rubeis & Granic, 2012). According to the determinant model of parenting (Belsky, 1984), parents’ intrapersonal resources (e.g. personality, cognitive capacities, self-regulation) are the most proximal and potent predictors of parenting behavior. For parents to appropriately respond to their children’s needs, regulate their behaviors, and promote positive relational experiences, they should display adaptive and flexible cognitive control capacities, also known as executive functions (Crandall, Deater-Deckard, & Riley, 2015). The term executive function is generally applied as an umbrella construct for a set of neurocognitive processes that facilitate conscious control of thoughts and actions, including attention control, inhibitory control, and working memory (Friedman et al., 2006).

Executive functions are vital for successful parenting because they allow parents to be perceptive, responsive, and flexible. Parents call on these capacities when they plan and change behavior, respond to cues, regulate emotion in the face of stress and challenging child behaviors, solve problems, and make decisions (Barrett & Fleming, 2011). Recent studies demonstrate the positive contribution of mothers’ executive functions to parenting behaviors (Lorber, 2012; Shaffer, Obradović, Obradovic, & Obradović, 2017). Specifically, findings indicate that mothers with low inhibitory and attention control demonstrate harsher and more negative parenting (Babinski et al., 2016; Deater-Deckard, Sewell, Petrill, & Thompson, 2010; Deater-Deckard, Wang, Chen, & Bell, 2012; Zaidman-Zait & Shilo, 2018), and mothers with attention deficits tend to be inconsistent in their parenting discipline style (Banks, Ninowski, Mash, & Semple, 2008; Chen & Johnston, 2007). Meanwhile, mothers with increased inhibitory control show better scaffolding abilities during interactions with young typically developing children (Bridgett, Kanya, Rutherford, & Mayes, 2017; Shaffer et al., 2017; Sturge-Apple, Suor, & Skibo, 2014). In addition, mothers with increased working memory and cognitive flexibility demonstrate higher parental sensitivity (Chico, Gonzalez, Ali, Steiner, & Fleming, 2014).

Another important control capacity, especially in the context of parenting children with ASD, is the utilization of active engaged coping. According to the control-based model of coping (Compas, Jaser, Dunn, & Rodriguez, 2012; Weisz, Francis, & Bearman, 2010), active engaged coping includes efforts to change a stressor and the emotional reaction to a stressor (e.g. problem solving) (Compas et al., 2012). Active engaged coping is an important cognitive regulatory resource that promotes positive adaptation among mothers of children with ASD (Benson, 2010, 2014; Zaidman-Zait et al., 2017). Its use may directly impact parents’ parenting and interpersonal skills (Bynum & Brody, 2005; Delongis & Preece, 2002), enabling them to better regulate their own and their children’s behaviors and needs (Fivush & Sales, 2006) and leading to positive parent–child interactions (Bynum & Brody, 2005; Errázuriz Arellano, Harvey, & Thakar, 2012; Leung & Slep, 2006). Taken together, these findings suggest that parents’ ability to cope with children with ASD and manage their own distress may be important for adaptive parent–child interaction patterns.

The goal of this study was to examine the contribution of maternal executive functions (i.e. sustained attention, inhibitory control, working memory) and active engaged coping to adaptive dyadic-level dynamic processes, taking a dynamic systems perspective on mother–child interactions, including dyadic affective flexibility and mutual positive affect, while considering the contribution of children’s ASD symptom severity and adaptive behavior. In line with the literature on maternal cognitive control capacities and parenting, it was predicted that better control capacities in mothers would predict greater mutual positivity and higher levels of dyadic flexibility.

Method

Participants

The participants were 40 mother–children dyads. Children ranged in age from 3 to 6 years (M = 4.6, SD = 0.9). To eliminate the need to consider child gender, the study focused exclusively on boys (five girls were excluded). To be included in the study, children had to have a diagnosis of ASD made by a qualified multidisciplinary team assessment following the guidelines of the Israeli Ministry of Health, using standard, valid and reliable assessment tools, including the Autism Diagnostic Observation Scale (Lord et al., 2000). Participants were required to provide a copy of their formal diagnostic assessment before being included in the study. All diagnoses were reviewed. Four families were excluded as they did not provide complete ASD diagnostic assessment information to confirm their child’s eligibility.

Mothers were, on average, 35.4 years old (SD = 4.5); 30% had a high-school diploma, 17.5% had a professional degree, 32.5% had a university degree, and 20% had a graduate degree. Household income ranged widely; 32.5% of the families reported an average or above average income level, 37.5% reported an income level just below average, and 30% reported low income levels. The sample’s representation of the general population was determined using data from the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Social Survey 2017 (https://surveys.cbs.gov.il/Survey/survey.htm). Analysis of the chi-square statistic indicated that there were no significant differences between the sample and the general population (restricted to mothers of young children aged 0–5 years) in terms of mothers’ education levels (χ² = 1.35, df = 3, p = 0.71) and household income (χ² = 3.97, df = 3, p = 0.27).

Procedure

Families were recruited through advertisements targeted at early childhood educational and intervention centers, parents’ organizations and support groups, and health professionals working with children diagnosed with ASD and their families. Two home visits were scheduled, approximately 1 week apart; each meeting lasted about 1.5–2 hours. Mothers were interviewed and completed computerized tasks and multiple questionnaires. In addition, they engaged in mother–child semi-structured play interaction activities commonly used with young children and their parents ( e.g. Baker, Fenning, Crnic, Baker, & Blacher, 2007; Beurkens et al., 2013; Crnic, Gaze, & Hoffman, 2005). Activities included a collaborative drawing, a problem-solving game, an imaginary/symbolic game, and free-play. Mothers interacted with their children for approximately 30 minutes. All parent–child activities, excluding transitions between activities, were coded for both parents and children.

Measures

Autism symptoms

To assess the severity of the children’s ASD symptoms, mothers completed the Social Communication Questionnaire Current Version (SCQ-Current; Rutter, Bailey, & Lord, 2003). This parent report questionnaire consists of 40 yes or no questions and probes symptoms in language/communication, social functioning, and repetitive/stereotyped behaviors over the most recent 3 months. Note that the SCQ-Current assesses the current severity of autistic symptoms and should not be confused with the SCQ-Lifetime Version, which considers the child’s entire developmental history. The measure of internal consistency using Cronbach’s α was 0.82.

Child adaptive behavior

The Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, Second Edition Interview Form (VABS-II; Sparrow, Cicchetti, & Balla, 2005), a semi-structured interview, was administered to mothers to determine their children’s adaptive behavior. In the VABS-II, the child’s performance on a given developmental task is rated on a scale from 0 = never, to 2 = usually. It assesses the child’s adaptive behavior in communication, socialization, and daily living skills and expresses overall functioning as an adaptive behavior composite score. The VABS-II has high interrater reliability across domains (0.71–0.81; Sparrow et al., 2005). Previous studies have demonstrated that independent of age and developmental level, the VABS-II is a strong measure of overall adaptive functioning levels in children with ASD (Fenton et al., 2003). Higher scores for the adaptive behavior domains indicate better functioning.

Active engaged coping

Mothers’ coping behaviors were assessed with the Brief COPE (Carver, 1997). The Brief COPE is a 28-item self-report inventory that measures a variety of aspects of coping behavior. Its items can be divided into various subscales measuring conceptually and empirically distinct aspects of coping (e.g. acceptance, active coping, behavioral disengagement). Respondents are asked to rate items on a 4-point Likert-type scale, from 1 = I don’t do this at all, to 4 = I do this a lot. Previous studies using the Brief COPE with parents of children with ASD have used different composite scores and different subscales (Benson, 2010, 2014; Ewles, Clifford, & Minnes, 2014; Hastings et al., 2005; Willis et al., 2016). Overall, however, the COPE subscales can be consolidated into active engaged and disengaged voluntary coping behaviors (Connor-Smith, Compas, Wadsworth, Thomsen, & Saltzman, 2000). Therefore, like other studies (Hastings et al., 2005; Sears & Kraus, 2009; Sears, Woodward, & Twillman, 2007; Stanton, Kirk, Cameron, & Danoff-Burg, 2000), this study used the active engaged coping composite score to assess the extent to which a mother used planning and problem-solving strategies to cope with stressors. A principal component factor analysis of the three subscales (i.e. planning, active coping, and seeking social support) with varimax rotation supported a one-factor solution explaining 45.51% of the common variance. Cronbach’s alpha was acceptable (α = 0.67).

Sustain attention

Mothers’ sustained attention was assessed using a neurocognitive computerized Conjunctive Continuous Performance Task (CCPT; Shalev, Ben-Simon, Mevorach, Cohen, & Tsal, 2011). In the task, a sequence of 16 possible stimuli that included a square, a circle, a triangle, or a star in red, blue, green, or yellow appeared in the center of a computer screen. Mothers were instructed to respond by pressing the space bar with their preferred index finger as soon as they saw a red square and to withhold responses to all other stimuli. The target appeared in 70% of the trials. The task consisted of a single block of 320 trials preceded by 15 practice trials and lasted approximately 12 minutes. Performance was measured by the standard deviation of reaction time, as this indicated the ability to stay on task (Shalev et al., 2011). The reported split-half reliabilities (mean of 1000 split-half estimates) of the CCPT were very high: 0.96 for reaction time data and 0.93 for accuracy data (Shalev, Kolodny, Shalev, & Mevorach, 2016).

Interference inhibitory control

Mothers’ inhibition control was assessed using a Direction-Location Stroop-like task (Tsal, Shalev, & Mevorach, 2005). In the task, participants were presented with a single stimulus, varying along two dimensions which could elicit conflicting responses. The task was composed of two subtasks: location judgments and direction judgments. In the location subtask, participants were required to respond “up” or “down” to indicate the location of the arrow (above or below fixation), ignoring its direction. In the direction subtask, participants were required to respond “up” or “down” to indicate the direction the arrow was pointing and to ignore its location. These two types of trials were randomly intermixed within each block. Each display was preceded by a 1000 msec white central fixation cross. The stimulus display was then presented for 150 msec. The time for response was unlimited. Participants were presented with two 40-trial “location” blocks followed by two 40-trial “direction” blocks. Each subtask was preceded by 10 practice trials. Performance was measured as the difference between reaction time in the incongruent and congruent conditions (Cuevas et al., 2014).

Maternal working memory

Mothers completed a computerized version of a Digit Span task identical to the Digit Span assessment of the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV; Wechsler, 2008). Two parts were included: the Forward Digit Span task consists of recalling a string of numbers immediately after presentation; the Backward Digit Span task consists of recalling a string of numbers in reverse immediately after presentation. The findings did not differ for the two tasks (r = 0.62, p < 0.001), so the mean standard score was used.

Mother–child affect-coding

Mothers’ and children’s affects were coded separately using the Dyadic Interaction Coding System (Lunkenheimer, 2009). Four codes reflected verbal and nonverbal affect: negative affect, neutral affect, low positive affect, and medium–high positive affect. Negative affect referred to an expression of irritation, annoyance, distress, anger, disgust, sadness, discomfort, fear, nervousness, or anxiety. Neutral affect reflected the absence of verbal or nonverbal affective expression. Low positive affect referred to the expression of low-intensity positive affect. Medium–high positive affect referred to the expression of medium-intensity or high-intensity positive affect. Behavioral observations were recorded using the INTERACT 16.05 observational software (Mangold, 2017) by two trained research assistants, who were not made aware of study hypotheses. Coding was done on a second-by-second basis, and codes were mutually exclusive and exhaustive, such that only one code was applied at any time, and every observable parent or child behavior fell under one code. The codes represented durations of behavior where each code was applied at the behavior onset and maintained until the onset of a different code. In all, 20% of the videotaped interactions were independently coded by two coders to provide estimates of reliability. Coders were unaware which sessions were used to assess observer agreement. Interobserver reliability for the affect coding across the different codes was, on average, 0.72 kappa.

Dyadic affect measures were derived using an affect coding system that mapped the sequence and duration of all the affect states of interactions in each mother and child dyad in real-time using State Space Grids (SSG; Lewis, Lamey, & Douglas, 1999). SSG is a well-known dynamic systems approach to parent–child affective dyadic interactions. SSG graphically maps the dyadic interaction patterns, including the sequence and duration of dyadic states, the content of the interaction, and its dynamic structure (Hollenstein & Lewis, 2006). Dyadic mutual positivity (a content measure) was operationalized as the proportion of time the dyad spent in the positive affect region of the SSG across all interaction activities, including all dyadic affective states where both mother and child were displaying positive affect and all dyadic affective states where one partner was displaying positive affect and the other was neutral (Lunkenheimer et al., 2013). Dyadic affective flexibility (a structural measure) characterizing the dynamic system structure was operationalized as dispersion. Dispersion indicates how behaviors are dispersed across the SSG cells and is calculated as the sum of the squared proportional duration of behaviors across all cells normalized by the number of cells in the grid matrix and inverted so that cell values range from zero (no dispersion; all behavior in one cell) to one (maximum dispersion; behavior equally distributed across the grid) (Hollenstein, 2012). Thus, the more evenly distributed the behaviors are across the grid of possible affective states, the more flexible the dyad.

Data analysis

The study’s main goal was to examine whether mothers’ executive functions and active engaged coping were associated with dyadic affective flexibility and mutual positivity, beyond child-level variables. Preliminary analyses were conducted to determine if the study’s variables differed by sociodemographic status (SES). As mothers’ SES was negatively correlated with maternal sustained attention (r = −0.38, p < 0.05) and positively correlated with working memory (r = 0.31, p = 0.05) and mutual positivity (r = 0.31, p = 0.05), it was included as a control variable. The independent relations between each of the child and parent variables were examined using Pearson’s product–moment correlations. The next step was hierarchical multiple regression analysis. In step 1, family SES, child’s age, ASD symptom severity, and adaptive functioning were entered as covariates. In step 2, mothers’ executive functions (i.e. sustained attention, inhibitory control, and working memory) were entered. Regression analysis was conducted separately for each of the dependent variables (i.e. dyadic affective flexibility and mutual positivity).

Results

Bivariate correlations

Descriptive statistics and the bivariate correlations for the study variables are presented in Table 1. As the table shows, in terms of mothers’ executive functions, lower ability to sustain attention was associated with lower levels of both mother–child affective flexibility and mutual positive affect during parent–child play interaction. In addition, lower inhibitory control was associated with lower levels of mother–child affective flexibility. Finally, increased use of active engaged coping was associated with increased mother–child mutual positive affect. In terms of the child characteristics, increased ASD symptom severity was related to lower mother–child affective flexibility, whereas lower levels of adaptive functioning were associated with lower mother–child mutual positive affect.

Table 1.

Means, standard deviations, and correlations among study variables (N = 40).

		Mean	SD	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	ASD symptom severity	15.28	5.15	−0.03	0.06	0.27	0.26	−0.26	−0.31	−0.23
2	Adaptive behaviors	63.55	6.57		0.27	−0.39*	0.11	0.19	0.08	0.41**
3	Active engaged coping	2.31	0.43			0.11	0.09	0.15	0.06	0.33*
4	Sustained attention	0.18	0.04				−0.08	−0.42**	−0.39*	−0.43**
5	Inhibitory control	-110.83	54.89					−0.10	−0.41**	−0.10
6	Working memory	0.00	0.90						0.06	0.07
7	Affective flexibility	0.81	0.08							0.64**
8	Mutual positivity	27.47	15.73							1

ASD: autism spectrum disorder.

p < .05.

p < .01.

Regression analyses

All the results of the hierarchical multiple regression models are displayed in Table 2. The results of regression analysis indicated that family SES, children’s age, ASD symptom severity, and adaptive behavior (entered in step 1) did not explain significant variance in affective flexibility. The addition of the mothers’ variables in step 2 (i.e. active engaged coping, sustained attention, inhibitory control, working memory) accounted for an additional 35% of the variance in affective flexibility (as indexed by higher dispersion), FΔ (4, 31) = 4.98, p < 0.01. In particular, mothers’ increased ability to sustain their attention and increased inhibitory control significantly predicted greater mother–child affective flexibility. Mothers’ active engaged coping was not a significant predictor of affective flexibility. The overall model accounted for 46% of the total variance in affective flexibility, F (8, 31) = 3.29, p < 0.01.

Table 2.

Hierarchical multiple regression results predicting affective flexibility and mutual positivity.

	Affective flexibility				Mutual positivity
	B	(SE)	Beta		B	(SE)	Beta
Step 1				R² = 0.11
Family SES	−0.008	0.01	−0.10		1.89	2.41	0.13
Child’s age	0.005	0.02	0.05		−0.354	3.02	−0.02
ASD symptom severity	−0.005	0.00	−0.32		−0.598	0.46	−0.20
Adaptive behaviors	0.002	0.00	0.14		0.82	0.43	0.34
Step 2				ΔR² = 0.35**				ΔR² = 0.24*
Family SES	−0.011	0.01	−0.14		1.556	2.22	0.11
Child’s age	−0.003	0.02	−0.03		−2.156	2.75	−0.12
ASD symptom severity	−0.002	0.00	−0.13		−0.372	0.44	−0.12
Adaptive behaviors	−0.001	0.00	−0.09		0.176	0.43	0.07
Active engaged coping	0.05	0.03	0.25		15.735	5.37	0.43**
Sustained attention	−0.052	0.01	−0.61***		−7.728	2.65	−0.49**
Inhibitory control	−0.038	0.01	−0.45**		−3.302	2.20	−0.21
Working memory	−0.024	0.02	−0.25		−5.161	2.67	−0.29

SES: sociodemographic status.

p < 0.05.

p < 0.01.

***

p < 0.001.

Mutual positive affect

Findings indicated that the children’s characteristics entered in step 1 explained a significant variance in mutual positive affect (R² = 0.23, F (4, 35) = 2.61, p = 0.05). Children with increased adaptive functioning demonstrated increased mutual positive affect during interactions with their mothers, yet this finding was marginal (p = 0.06). The mothers’ variables entered in step 2 significantly accounted for an additional 24% explained variance in mutual positive affect (FΔ (4, 31) = 3.56, p < 0.05). Mothers who used more active engaged coping strategies and those with enhanced sustained attention engaged more in mutual positive affect with their child. It should be noted that children’s adaptive behavior did not remain significant when mothers’ executive functions and active engaged coping were included in the model. The overall model accounted for 47% of the variance in mutual positive affect, F (8, 31) = 3.47, p < 0.01.

Discussion

The importance of adaptive parent–child dyadic regulatory processes in interpersonal interactions and subsequent children’s social-emotional development is increasingly recognized by researchers (Hollenstein & Lewis, 2006). Recent conceptual models stress the contribution of parental cognitive control capacities to effective parenting (Bridgett, Burt, Edwards, & Deater-Deckard, 2015; Crandall et al., 2015), and parent-mediated interventions are becoming common practice in interventions supporting the developmental outcomes of children with ASD (Green et al., 2017; Kasari, Gulsrud, Paparella, Hellemann, & Berry, 2015; Nevill, Lecavalier, & Stratis, 2018). Building on the previous literature, this study examined the role of maternal executive functions and active engaged coping in relation to dyadic regulatory processes, including dyadic affective flexibility and dyadic mutual positive affect, during play interactions between mothers and their children with ASD as they unfolded in real time.

The study yielded several important findings. For one thing, mothers’ increased ability to sustain their attention and increased inhibitory control predicted increased dyadic affective flexibility. In addition, an increase in maternal sustained attention and higher use of engaged coping predicted a dyadic mutual positive affect. Importantly, these associations were found after accounting for children’s age, ASD symptom severity, and adaptive behavior. A critical part of effective parenting is the ability to flexibly adapt behavior to meet changing demands. Mothers with better sustained attention and more inhibitory control may be able to be continuously attentive to their children’s behavior, efficiently switch attention and orient focus, follow and evaluate their children’s signals and needs, and maintain or adapt their goals and responses in a manner appropriate for the children’s needs. Furthermore, given that inhibitory control supports an individual’s ability to adaptively regulate cognition, emotion, and behavior (Posner & Rothbart, 2007), this component of executive functioning may support parental abilities to simultaneously consider multiple aspects of a situation and flexibly switch between strategies during parent-child interaction.

The study’s findings are consistent with previous work demonstrating the association between inhibitory control and positive parenting behaviors during parent–child interactions among mothers of typically developing young children (Shaffer et al., 2017; Sturge-Apple, Jones, & Suor, 2017). They are also consistent with findings that better cognitive flexibility is associated with higher maternal sensitivity during mother–infant interactions (Chico et al., 2014; Gonzalez, Jenkins, Steiner, & Fleming, 2012).

Mothers’ sustained attention was also associated with increased mutual positivity during mother–child interactions. The study’s results showing the importance of sustained attention to parenting co-regulation are consistent with findings that mothers with attention deficits have difficulty organizing and consistently monitoring their children’s actions and their own parenting actions (Chen & Johnston, 2007; Harvey et al., 2003; Murray & Johnston, 2006; Park et al., 2017). Children with ASD have fewer regulatory and social communication resources to bring to the dyadic interaction than their parents. As mothers are presumably more skilled in social interactions, their regulation of the dyadic process is critical (Harrist, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 1994). Mothers may even require increased effort and cognitive control abilities to compensate for their children’s difficulties and to flexibly and effectively regulate their children’s engagement.

Maternal cognitive control resources that promote mothers’ abilities to regulate their children through positive and supportive caregiving are likely to foster the development of dyadic flexibility and positive affect. Considering the difficulties in engaging in reciprocal social interactions with children with ASD (Baker et al., 2007; Cotugno, 2009; Charlop, Dennis, Carpenter, & Greenberg, 2010), it seems likely that co-regulation processes might be more challenging for these children and their parents. However, parents with essential cognitive control capacities will be able to be more attuned to their children with ASD and respond to their cues in a more effective way, leading to positive mutual engagement in the interaction.

In this study, maternal working memory was not associated with dyadic flexibility or positivity. Although several studies have documented a bivariate association between maternal working memory and parenting, albeit with a small effect size (Obradović et al., 2017; Sturge-Apple et al., 2017), other studies have not found a significant association (Chico et al., 2014; Deater-Deckard et al., 2010). Moreover, several studies have included working memory, along with executive attention and response, inhibition, as a component of executive functioning (e.g. Deater-deckard et al., 2012), making it impossible to determine the unique effect of working memory on parenting. It should also be noted that in some studies, although there was no significant main effect or bivariate correlation between working memory and parenting, working memory moderated the effect of challenging child behavior on negative parenting. Specifically, mothers with poorer working memory exhibited negative parenting when faced with challenging child behavior (Deater-Deckard et al., 2010, 2012). It may be that the contribution of working memory, a key aspect of cognitive control (Baddeley, 2003) and negative reactivity (Bridgett, Oddi, Laake, Murdock, & Bachmann, 2013), supports parenting behaviors only in challenging situations, such as when parents must regulate their emotions and modulate their behavior toward their children (Deater-Deckard et al., 2012; Obradović et al., 2017). In addition, studies have varied in their assessments of working memory (Chico et al., 2014; Deater-Deckard et al., 2010; Obradović et al., 2017) and in sample characteristics. The methodological and sample characteristics, as well as other variables included in the models, might explain the apparent inconsistency across studies. For example, one study found significant associations between spatial working memory and less maternal sensitivity during mother–infant interactions (Gonzalez et al., 2012), but a study of teen and adult mothers found mothers’ spatial working memory was not related to less maternal sensitivity during mother–infant interactions (Chico et al., 2014). In another study, word span working memory was correlated with maternal scaffolding, with very low effect size (r = 0.17), among very poor women with no formal education in a disadvantaged context. In short, further research is needed for understanding the impact of working memory on parenting.

The finding that the components of the executive functions examined here were associated differently with dyadic measures fits with the notion that executive function is a multidimensional construct representing distinct entities (Miyake et al., 2000). The study’s findings extend previous research and suggest the need for researchers to examine specific and multiple executive function components in relation to particular parenting behaviors (Deater-Deckard et al., 2010; Gonzalez et al., 2012).

The present findings and those of previous studies indicate that active coping makes a positive contribution to parenting adaptation among mothers of children with ASD (Hastings et al., 2005; Lyons, Leon, Roecker Phelps, & Dunleavy, 2010; Pottie & Ingram, 2008; Zablotsky, Bradshaw, & Stuart, 2013; Zaidman-Zait et al., 2017). Mothers’ increased utilization of active engaged coping strategies (i.e. those aimed at solving a problem, planning next steps to solve the problem, or getting instrumental support) also appeared to be a positive resource by fostering mother–child mutual positivity. Arguably, mothers who use active engaged coping strategies also have better psychological wellbeing; this, in turn, helps them to positively engage with their children and supports affect regulation, leading to increased dyadic positive affect. Among mothers of typically developing children, higher psychological distress has been related to decreased dyadic positive affect during parent–child interactions (Coburn et al., 2015; Connell, Hughes-Scalise, Klostermann, & Azem, 2011). Overall, positive affect is found to enhance the ability to detect someone else’s mood change (Jackson & Arlegui-Prieto, 2016). Utilizing active coping might enable parents to regulate their children’s behavior and respond to their needs (Fivush & Sales, 2006), resulting in more positive mother–child interactions (Bynum & Brody, 2005).

It should be noted that mothers’ active engaged coping was not associated with dyadic flexibility. This finding supports the claim that coping responses are not universally helpful to all adaptive behaviors but depend, in part, on the match between the demand and the goal and the nature of the coping response (Compas et al., 2012). In other words, active engaged coping might be helpful in maintaining affective dyadic content but not in supporting the structure or pattern of flexibility during interaction. Similarly, dyadic flexibility and mutual positivity have a differential effect on parent and/or child risk factors (Granic et al., 2007; Lunkenheimer et al., 2013).

In this study, children’s adaptive functioning was positively associated with dyadic positive affect, while ASD symptom severity had a bivariate and significant association with reduced dyadic flexibility. However, the regression model showed only a marginally significant association. Children’s characteristics have been shown to make important contributions to the quality of the parent–child relationship and subsequent child adjustment (Bell, 1968). Thus, children with lower adaptive functioning and increased symptom severity may be particularly at risk for troubled parent–child interactions. Some research shows that low affective flexibility in parent–child interactions is maladaptive and is related to children’s behavior problem outcomes (Dumas, Lemay, & Dauwalder, 2001; Hollenstein et al., 2004). While mothers of children with ASD may guide and support them, children actively contribute to the dyad. Mothers may find children with poor adaptive functioning and more severe ASD symptoms to be less enjoyable play partners than children with better adaptive functioning. It requires less effort to engage a child who has better adaptive functioning skills and less severe symptoms of ASD than a child with more severe ASD symptoms and less adaptive behaviors. Ultimately, interactions in which the parent and child struggle to mutually engage and co-regulate may appear one-sided and strained.

Implications of the research, limitations, and future research

The results of this study highlight the importance of the personal resources of parents of children with ASD, not only for parents’ wellbeing (Zaidman-Zait et al., 2018) but also for parent–child adaptive interaction patterns. This suggests that parents may benefit from specific, parent-focused interventions designed to teach active, problem-focused coping and to enhance parents’ cognitive control capacities, for example, through mindfulness training or cognitive behavioral approaches (Cachia, Anderson, & Moore, 2016; Feinberg, Jones, Roettger, Solmeyer, & Hostetler, 2014). In mindfulness interventions, parents are taught to inhibit their responses to difficult behavior, thus reducing reactivity, negative emotions, and overreactivity (Van der Oord, Bögels, & Peijnenburg, 2012). Studies of the effect of mindfulness among parents of children with ASD report that parents with a higher level of mindfulness skills have lower levels of stress and depression (Beer, Ward, & Moar, 2013; Cachia et al., 2016). Accordingly, these studies indicate the need to see parents’ self-regulatory capacities as a critical resistance factor in the link between caregiving demands and maladaptation adaptation (e.g. Ferraioli, Hansford, & Harris, 2012; Neece, 2014). Future work could address whether strategies that aim to improve parents’ cognitive flexibility may impact children’s outcomes by enhancing parent–child affective or behavioral flexibility during interactions. This line of research is important, especially in the context of parent-mediated interventions.

It should be noted that emotion regulation aspects are likely to be related to executive functioning (Rutherford, Wallace, Laurent, & Mayes, 2015) and also to serve mothers’ parenting ability to appropriately respond to their children’s behavior during parent–child interactions (Morris, Silk, Steinberg, Myers, & Robinson, 2007; Shaffer et al., 2017). Accordingly, maternal emotion regulation needs further consideration in future studies to identify its unique contributions to parent–child interactions.

The study has some limitations. First, the data are cross-sectional, not longitudinal, making it impossible to ascertain the nature of the relationships presented or to assume any causality. Thus, the study cannot fully address maternal and dynamic interaction patterns over developmental time. Future research could examine mother–child interactions across multiple assessments to query the longitudinal stability of dynamic parent–child interaction patterns and their relations with the developmental and intervention outcomes of children with ASD. Furthermore, the sample included only boys, which limits its generalizability; the patterns of associations may be different in mother–daughter dyads.

Despite these limitations, the study sheds light on the dynamic dyadic structure and content (affective flexibility and mutual positivity). It provides evidence that maternal and child factors are associated with dyadic interactions, supporting the contention that mother–child interaction quality is more than a reflection of parents’ or children’s competencies. Research on parent cognitive and emotional control capacities has the potential to illuminate the individual differences in parenting (Bridgett et al., 2015; Crandall et al., 2015), especially if it adopts a dynamic systems perspective, thus extending the understanding of the dynamic, transactional influences unfolding between parents and children with ASD in real time (Granic & Patterson, 2006). Such research is likely to suggest new interventions for children with ASD and their families.

Supplemental Material

AUT854653_Lay_Abstract – Supplemental material for The contribution of maternal executive functions and active coping to dyadic affective dynamics: Children with autism spectrum disorder and their mothers

Supplemental material, AUT854653_Lay_Abstract for The contribution of maternal executive functions and active coping to dyadic affective dynamics: Children with autism spectrum disorder and their mothers by Anat Zaidman-Zait in Autism

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author thanks all of the children and families who participated in the study.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: European Commission, Marie Curie Actions–Career Integration Grant (Grant/Award No.: “618907”).

ORCID iD

Anat Zaidman-Zait

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