Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T12:04:12.226Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Maternal depressive symptoms and sensitivity are related to young children's facial expression recognition: The Generation R Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2014

Eszter Székely ,
Nicole Lucassen ,
Henning Tiemeier ,
Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg ,
Marinus H. Van Ijzendoorn ,
Rianne Kok ,
Vincent W. V. Jaddoe ,
Albert Hofman ,
Frank C. Verhulst  and
Catherine M. Herba
Eszter Székely
Affiliation:
Erasmus Medical Center Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam
Nicole Lucassen
Affiliation:
Erasmus Medical Center Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam
Henning Tiemeier*
Affiliation:
Erasmus Medical Center Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam
Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg
Affiliation:
Leiden University
Marinus H. Van Ijzendoorn
Affiliation:
Leiden University Erasmus University Rotterdam
Rianne Kok
Affiliation:
Erasmus Medical Center Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam Leiden University
Vincent W. V. Jaddoe
Affiliation:
Erasmus Medical Center
Albert Hofman
Affiliation:
Erasmus Medical Center
Frank C. Verhulst
Affiliation:
Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam
Catherine M. Herba
Affiliation:
Sophia Children's Hospital, Rotterdam University of Québec at Montréal and Ste-Justine's Hospital Research Center Montréal
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Henning Tiemeier, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Psychology, Erasmus Medical Center, Sophia Children's Hospital, P.O. Box 2060, 3000 CB Rotterdam, The Netherlands; E-mail: h.tiemeier@erasmusmc.nl.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A vast body of literature shows that maternal depression has long-term adverse consequences for children. However, only very few studies have documented the effect of maternal depression on children's ability to process emotional expressions and even fewer incorporated measures of observed maternal sensitivity to further tease apart whether it is the symptoms per se or the associated impact via maternal sensitivity that affects children's developing emotion-processing abilities. In a large community sample of Dutch preschoolers (N = 770), we examined independent and mediated effects of maternal depressive symptoms and sensitivity on children's ability to recognize emotional expressions using a nonverbal and a verbal task paradigm. Maternal depressive symptoms predicted less accurate emotion labeling in children, while maternal sensitivity was associated with more accurate emotion matching, especially for sadness and anger. Maternal sensitivity did not mediate the observed associations between mothers’ depressive symptoms and children's emotion recognition, and effects were similar for boys and girls. Given that maternal depressive symptoms and sensitivity affected nonoverlapping areas of young children's emotion recognition, prevention and intervention efforts should focus on both alleviating maternal depressive symptoms and improving maternal sensitivity at the same time in order to maximize benefit.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , May 2014 , pp. 333 - 345
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alink, L. R. A., Mesman, J., Van Zeijl, J., Stolk, M. N., Juffer, F., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., et al. (2009). Maternal sensitivity moderates the relation between negative discipline and aggression in early childhood. Social Development, 18, 99–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atkinson, L., Paglia, A., Coolbear, J., Niccols, A., Parker, K. C. H., & Guger, S. (2000). Attachment security: A meta-analysis of maternal mental health correlates. Clinical Psychology Review, 20, 1019–1040.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beardslee, W. R., Gladstone, T. R. G., & O'Connor, E. E. (2011). Transmission and prevention of mood disorders among children of affectively ill parents: A review. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 50, 1098–1109.Google Scholar
Beck, C. T. (1995). The effects of postpartum depression on maternal–infant interaction: A meta-analysis. Nursing Research, 44, 298–304.Google Scholar
Beck, C. T. (1998). The effects of postpartum depression on child development: A meta-analysis. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 12, 12–20.Google Scholar
Blom, E., Jansen, P., Verhulst, F., Hofman, A., Raat, H., Jaddoe, V., et al. (2010). Perinatal complications increase the risk of postpartum depression: The Generation R Study. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 117, 1390–1398.Google Scholar
Bornstein, M. H., Arterberry, M. E., Mash, C., & Manian, N. (2011). Discrimination of facial expression by 5-month-old infants of nondepressed and clinically depressed mothers. Infant Behavior and Development, 34, 100–106.Google Scholar
Brennan, P. A., Hammen, C., Andersen, M. J., Bor, W., Najman, J. M., & Williams, G. M. (2000). Chronicity, severity, and timing of maternal depressive symptoms: Relationships with child outcomes at age 5. Developmental Psychology, 36, 759–766.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brockington, I. (2004). Postpartum psychiatric disorders. Lancet, 363, 303–310.Google Scholar
Campbell, S. B., Brownell, C. A., Hungerford, A., Spieker, S. J., Mohan, R., & Blessing, J. S. (2004). The course of maternal depressive symptoms and maternal sensitivity as predictors of attachment security at 36 months. Development and Psychopathology, 16, 231–252.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Campbell, S. B., Cohn, J. F., & Meyers, T. (1995). Depression in first-time mothers: Mother–infant interaction and depression chronicity. Developmental Psychology, 31, 349–357.Google Scholar
Campbell, S. B., Matestic, P., von Stauffenberg, C., Mohan, R., & Kirchner, T. (2007). Trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms, maternal sensitivity, and children's functioning at school entry. Developmental Psychology, 43, 1202–1215.Google Scholar
Camras, L. A., & Allison, K. (1985). Children's understanding of emotional facial expressions and verbal labels. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 9, 84–94.Google Scholar
Cohn, J. F., Campbell, S. B., Matias, R., & Hopkins, J. (1990). Face-to-face interactions of postpartum depressed and nondepressed mother–infant pairs at 2 months. Developmental Psychology, 26, 15–23.Google Scholar
Cox, J. L., Holden, J. M., & Sagovsky, R. (1987). Detection of postnatal depression: Development of the 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. British Journal of Psychiatry, 150, 782–786.Google Scholar
Cummings, E. M., Davies, P. T., & Campbell, S. B. (2000). Developmental psychopathology and family process: Theory, research, and clinical implications. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Dawson, G., Ashman, S. B., Panagiotides, H., Hessl, D., Self, J., Yamada, E., et al. (2003). Preschool outcomes of children of depressed mothers: Role of maternal behavior, contextual risk, and children's brain activity. Child Development, 74, 1158–1175.Google Scholar
De Beurs, E. (2004). Brief Symptom Inventory, Handleiding [Dutch Manual]. Leiden: PITS B. V. Google Scholar
De Beurs, E. (2009). Brief Symptom Inventory, Handleiding Addendum [Dutch Manual Addendum]. Leiden: PITS B. V. Google Scholar
De Haan, M., Belsky, J., Reid, V., Volein, A., & Johnson, M. H. (2004). Maternal personality and infants’ neural and visual responsivity to facial expressions of emotion. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 1209–1218.Google Scholar
Demenescu, L. R., Kortekaas, R., den Boer, J. A., & Aleman, A. (2010). Impaired attribution of emotion to facial expressions in anxiety and major depression. PLoS ONE, 5, e15058.Google Scholar
Denham, S. A. (1998). Emotional development in young children. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Derogatis, L. R. (1993). BSI Brief Symptom Inventory: Administration, scoring and procedures manual. Minneapolis, MN: National Computer Systems.Google Scholar
Derogatis, L. R., & Melisaratos, N. (1983). The Brief Symptom Inventory: An introductory report. Psychological Medicine, 13, 595–605.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Wolff, M. S., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2006). Sensitivity and attachment: A meta-analysis on parental antecedents of infant attachment. Child Development, 68, 571–591.Google Scholar
Diego, M. A., Field, T., Hart, S., Hernandez-Reif, M., Jones, N., Cullen, C., et al. (2002). Facial expressions and EEG in infants of intrusive and withdrawn mothers with depressive symptoms. Depression and Anxiety, 15, 10–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Diego, M. A., Field, T., Jones, N. A., Hernandez-Reif, M., Cullen, C., Schanberg, S., et al. (2004). EEG responses to mock facial expressions by infants of depressed mothers. Infant Behavior and Development, 27, 150–162.Google Scholar
Downey, G., & Coyne, J. C. (1990). Children of depressed parents: An integrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 50–76.Google Scholar
Egeland, B., Erickson, M. F., Clemenhagen-Moon, J. C., Hiester, M. K., & Korfmacher, J. (1990). 24 Months tools coding manual. Project STEEP. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.Google Scholar
Elgar, F. J., McGrath, P. J., Waschbusch, D. A., Stewart, S. H., & Curtis, L. J. (2004). Mutual influences on maternal depression and child adjustment problems. Clinical Psychology Review, 24, 441–459.Google Scholar
Ensminger, M. E., Hanson, S. G., Riley, A. W., & Juon, H.-S. (2003). Maternal psychological distress: Adult sons’ and daughters’ mental health and educational attainment. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 42, 1108–1115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Field, T. (1995). Infants of depressed mothers. Infant Behavior and Development, 18, 1–13.Google Scholar
Field, T., Healy, B. T., Goldstein, S., & Guthertz, M. (1990). Behavior-state matching and synchrony in mother–infant interactions of nondepressed versus depressed dyads. Developmental Psychology, 26, 7–14.Google Scholar
Field, T., Hernandez-Reif, M., & Diego, M. (2006). Intrusive and withdrawn depressed mothers and their infants. Developmental Review, 26, 15–30.Google Scholar
Fries, A. B., & Pollak, S. D. (2004). Emotion understanding in postinstitutionalized Eastern European children. Development and Psychopathology, 16, 355–369.Google Scholar
Gibb, B. E., Benas, J. S., Grassia, M., & McGeary, J. (2009). Children's attentional biases and 5-HTTLPR genotype: Potential mechanisms linking mother and child depression. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 38, 415–426.Google Scholar
Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581–586.Google Scholar
Goodman, S. H. (2007). Depression in mothers. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 3, 107–135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goodman, S. H., & Gotlib, I. H. (1999). Risk for psychopathology in the children of depressed mothers: A developmental model for understanding mechanisms of transmission. Psychological Review, 106, 458–490.Google Scholar
Goodman, S. H., Rouse, M. H., Connell, A. M., Broth, M. R., Hall, C. M., & Heyward, D. (2011). Maternal depression and child psychopathology: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 14, 1–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grace, S. L., Evindar, A., & Stewart, D. E. (2003). The effect of postpartum depression on child cognitive development and behavior: A review and critical analysis of the literature. Archives of Women's Mental Health, 6, 263–274.Google Scholar
Guyer, A. E., Monk, C. S., McClure-Tone, E. B., Nelson, E. E., Roberson-Nay, R., Adler, A., et al. (2008). A developmental examination of amygdala response to facial expressions. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 1565–1582.Google Scholar
Hamilton, E. B., Jones, M., & Hammen, C. (1993). Maternal interaction style in affective disordered, physically ill, and normal women. Family Process, 32, 329–340.Google Scholar
Hariri, A. R., Bookheimer, S. Y., & Mazziotta, J. C. (2000). Modulating emotional responses: Effects of a neocortical network on the limbic system. NeuroReport, 11, 43–48.Google Scholar
Hariri, A. R., Mattay, V. S., Tessitore, A., Fera, F., & Weinberger, D. R. (2003). Neocortical modulation of the amygdala response to fearful stimuli. Biological Psychiatry, 53, 494–501.Google Scholar
Haxby, J. V., Hoffman, E. A., & Gobbini, M. I. (2002). Human neural systems for face recognition and social communication. Biological Psychiatry, 51, 59–67.Google Scholar
Hay, D. F., & Kumar, R. (1995). Interpreting the effects of mothers’ postnatal depression on children's intelligence: A critique and re-analysis. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 25, 165–181.Google Scholar
Hay, D. F., Pawlby, S., Waters, C. S., & Sharp, D. (2008). Antepartum and postpartum exposure to maternal depression: Different effects on different adolescent outcomes. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49, 1079–1088.Google Scholar
Herba, C., & Phillips, M. (2004). Annotation: Development of facial expression recognition from childhood to adolescence: Behavioural and neurological perspectives. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 1185–1198.Google Scholar
Herba, C. M., Landau, S., Russell, T., Ecker, C., & Phillips, M. L. (2006). The development of emotion-processing in children: Effects of age, emotion, and intensity. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47, 1098–1106.Google Scholar
Hernandez-Reif, M., Field, T., Diego, M., Vera, Y., & Pickens, J. (2006). Happy faces are habituated more slowly by infants of depressed mothers. Infant Behavior and Development, 29, 131–135.Google Scholar
Hoffner, C., & Badzinski, D. M. (1989). Children's integration of facial and situational cues to emotion. Child Development, 60, 411–422.Google Scholar
Jaddoe, V., van Duijn, C., Franco, O., van der Heijden, A., van IJzendoorn, M., de Jongste, J., et al. (2012). The Generation R Study: Design and cohort update 2012. European Journal of Epidemiology, 27, 739–756.Google Scholar
Jaddoe, V., van Duijn, C., van der Heijden, A., Mackenbach, J., Moll, H., Steegers, E., et al. (2008). The Generation R Study: Design and cohort update until the age of 4 years. European Journal of Epidemiology, 23, 801–811.Google Scholar
Joormann, J., Gilbert, K., & Gotlib, I. H. (2010). Emotion identification in girls at high risk for depression. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51, 575–582.Google Scholar
Joormann, J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2007). Selective attention to emotional faces following recovery from depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 116, 80–85.Google Scholar
Joormann, J., Talbot, L., & Gotlib, I. H. (2007). Biased processing of emotional information in girls at risk for depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 116, 135–143.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Josefsson, A., Berg, G., Nordin, C., & Sydsjö, G. (2001). Prevalence of depressive symptoms in late pregnancy and postpartum. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 80, 251–255.Google Scholar
Josefsson, A., & Sydsjö, G. (2007). A follow-up study of postpartum depressed women: Maternal depressive symptoms and child behavior after four years. Archives of Women's Mental Health, 10, 141–145.Google Scholar
Korhonen, M., Luoma, L., Salmelin, R., & Tamminen, T. (2012). A longitudinal study of maternal prenatal, postnatal and concurrent depressive symptoms and adolescent well-being. Journal of Affective Disorders, 136, 680–692.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kujawa, A., Torpey, D., Kim, J., Hajcak, G., Rose, S., Gotlib, I., et al. (2011). Attentional biases for emotional faces in young children of mothers with chronic or recurrent depression. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 39, 125–135.Google Scholar
Kurstjens, S., & Wolke, D. (2001). Effects of maternal depression on cognitive development of children over the first 7 years of life. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 42, 623–636.Google Scholar
Leppänen, J. M. (2006). Emotional information processing in mood disorders: A review of behavioral and neuroimaging findings. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 19, 34–39.Google Scholar
Lewinsohn, P. M., Clarke, G. N., Seeley, J. R., & Rohde, P. (1994). Major depression in community adolescents: Age at onset, episode duration, and time to recurrence. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 33, 809–818.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, M. C., Graczyk, P. A., O'Hare, E., & Neuman, G. (2000). Maternal depression and parenting behavior: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 20, 561–592.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Luoma, I., Tamminen, T., Kaukonen, P., Laippala, P., Puura, K., Salmelin, R., et al. (2001). Longitudinal study of maternal depressive symptoms and child well-being. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 40, 1367–1374.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, D. P., Lockwood, C. M., Hoffman, J. M., West, S. G., & Sheets, V. (2002). A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. Psychological Methods, 7, 83–104.Google Scholar
Monk, C. S. (2008). The development of emotion-related neural circuitry in health and psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 20 (Special Issue 04), 1231–1250.Google Scholar
Montague, D. P., & Walker-Andrews, A. S. (2002). Mothers, fathers, and infants: The role of person familiarity and parental involvement in infants’ perception of emotion expressions. Child Development, 73, 1339–1352.Google Scholar
Murray, L. (1992). The impact of postnatal depression on infant development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 33, 543–561.Google Scholar
Murray, L., Arteche, A., Fearon, P., Halligan, S., Croudace, T., & Cooper, P. (2010). The effects of maternal postnatal depression and child sex on academic performance at age 16 years: A developmental approach. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 51, 1150–1159.Google Scholar
Murray, L., & Cooper, P. J. (1997a). Effects of postnatal depression on infant development. Archives of Disease in Childhood, 77, 99–101.Google Scholar
Murray, L., & Cooper, P. J. (1997b). Postpartum depression and child development. Psychological Medicine, 27, 253–256.Google Scholar
Murray, L., Fiori-Cowley, A., Hooper, R., & Cooper, P. (1996). The impact of postnatal depression and associated adversity on early mother–infant interactions and later Infant outcome. Child Development, 67, 2512–2526.Google Scholar
Murray, L., Kempton, C., Woolgar, M., & Hooper, R. (1993). Depressed mothers’ speech to their infants and its relation to infant gender and cognitive development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 34, 1083–1101.Google Scholar
Murray, L., Sinclair, D., Cooper, P., Ducournau, P., Turner, P., & Stein, A. (1999). The socioemotional development of 5-year-old children of postnatally depressed mothers. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 1259–1271.Google Scholar
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care and Research Network (NICHD ECCRN) (1999). Chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms, maternal sensitivity, and child functioning at 36 months. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1297–1310.Google Scholar
Phan, K. L., Wager, T., Taylor, S. F., & Liberzon, I. (2002). Functional neuroanatomy of emotion: A meta-analysis of emotion activation studies in PET and fMRI. NeuroImage, 16, 331–348.Google Scholar
Philippot, P., & Feldman, R. S. (1990). Age and social competence in preschoolers’ decoding of facial expression. British Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 43–54.Google Scholar
Phillips, M. L., Drevets, W. C., Rauch, S. L., & Lane, R. (2003). Neurobiology of emotion perception: II. Implications for major psychiatric disorders. Biological Psychiatry, 54, 515–528.Google Scholar
Phillips, M. L., Williams, L. M., Heining, M., Herba, C. M., Russell, T., Andrew, C., et al. (2004). Differential neural responses to overt and covert presentations of facial expressions of fear and disgust. NeuroImage, 21, 1484–1496.Google Scholar
Pickens, J. N., & Field, T. (1995). Facial expressions and vagal tone of infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers. Early Development and Parenting, 4, 83–89.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., Cicchetti, D., Hornung, K., & Reed, A. (2000). Recognizing emotion in faces: Developmental effects of child abuse and neglect. Developmental Psychology, 36, 679–688.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., Messner, M., Kistler, D. J., & Cohn, J. F. (2009). Development of perceptual expertise in emotion recognition. Cognition, 110, 242–247.Google Scholar
Preacher, K., & Hayes, A. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 879–891.Google Scholar
Ressler, K. J., & Mayberg, H. S. (2007). Targeting abnormal neural circuits in mood and anxiety disorders: From the laboratory to the clinic. Nature Neuroscience, 10, 1116–1124.Google Scholar
Rice, F., Harold, G., & Thaper, A. (2002). The genetic aetiology of childhood depression: A review. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43, 65–79.Google Scholar
Shrout, P. E., & Bolger, N. (2002). Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental studies: New procedures and recommendations. Psychological Methods, 7, 422–445.Google Scholar
Székely, E., Tiemeier, H., Arends, L. R., Jaddoe, V., Hofman, A., Verhulst, F., et al. (2011). Recognition of facial expressions of emotions by 3-year-olds. Emotion, 11, 425–435.Google Scholar
Teti, D. M., Gelfand, D. M., Messinger, D. S., & Isabella, R. (1995). Maternal depression and the quality of early attachment: An examination of infants, preschoolers, and their mothers. Developmental Psychology, 31, 364–376.Google Scholar
Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J. W., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., et al. (2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 168, 242–249.Google Scholar
Trapolini, T., McMahon, C. A., & Ungerer, J. A. (2007). The effect of maternal depression and marital adjustment on young children's internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems. Child: Care, Health and Development, 33, 794–803.Google Scholar
Tronick, E., & Reck, C. (2009). Infants of depressed mothers. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 17, 147–156.Google Scholar
Vicari, S., Reilly, J. S., Pasqualetti, P., Vizzotto, A., & Caltagirone, C. (2000). Recognition of facial expressions of emotions in school-age children: The intersection of perceptual and semantic categories. Acta Paediatrica, 89, 836–845.Google Scholar
Wan, M., & Green, J. (2009). The impact of maternal psychopathology on child–mother attachment. Archives of Women's Mental Health, 12, 123–134.Google Scholar
Weinberg, M. K., & Tronick, E. Z. (1998). Emotional characteristics of infants associated with maternal depression and anxiety. Pediatrics, 102(Suppl. E1), 1298–1304.Google Scholar
Widen, S. C., & Russell, J. A. (2003). A closer look at preschoolers’ freely produced labels for facial expressions. Developmental Psychology, 39, 114–128.Google Scholar