Written by Beth Barker
Following the close of the first day of IAC 2017, I found my head buzzing with fresh ideas for future research, collaborations and papers. Part of me wondered how Day 2 could come even come close to the bar set so high by Day 1 but wonderfully the second day just pushed that bar even higher. The day was kicked off by three insightful and thought-provoking talks from the key notes, and rounded off by a fantastic fifteen symposia.
Prof. Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg - Leiden University
To begin, Prof. Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg provided a captivating insight into the world of infant crying. We already know that crying plays a really important role in how infants develop attachments with their caregivers, but key to this attachment forming is the response that their crying is met with. Crying often evokes a sensitive and positive response from parents to ensure that the needs of the infant are met. However, infant crying can also result in anger, fear, or aversion from the parent, particularly if the baby is crying for 5+ hours a day. Prof. Bakermans-Kranenburg’s group have been working to examine why some parents are able to respond in a sensitive way to their crying infants, whilst others respond in an abusive manner. The fact that incidences of Shaken Baby Syndrome peak around eight weeks of age, around the same time that rates of infant crying peaks, really drove home why research of this kind is so important.
Prof. Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg - Leiden University
To begin, Prof. Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg provided a captivating insight into the world of infant crying. We already know that crying plays a really important role in how infants develop attachments with their caregivers, but key to this attachment forming is the response that their crying is met with. Crying often evokes a sensitive and positive response from parents to ensure that the needs of the infant are met. However, infant crying can also result in anger, fear, or aversion from the parent, particularly if the baby is crying for 5+ hours a day. Prof. Bakermans-Kranenburg’s group have been working to examine why some parents are able to respond in a sensitive way to their crying infants, whilst others respond in an abusive manner. The fact that incidences of Shaken Baby Syndrome peak around eight weeks of age, around the same time that rates of infant crying peaks, really drove home why research of this kind is so important.
A range of biological and psychological factors appear to play a part in individual responses to infant crying, including maternal oxytocin levels and attachment representations. Findings from Marian’s work indicate that intranasal oxytocin administration can not only increase overt sensitive maternal behaviours when exposed to infant crying, but also result in a decrease in amygdala reactivity and handgrip force, from those with insecure attachment representations. Prof. Bakermans-Kranenburg stressed that, despite the encouraging results of these findings, the answer isn’t quite as simple as administering oxytocin to all in an effort to induce solely positive responses to infant crying, as effectiveness differed between groups. Nonetheless, the findings were highly interesting and the papers from the research were quickly added to my growing to-read list!
Prof. Jonathan Hill – University of Reading
Next up was Jonathan Hill who was presenting findings looking at sex differences in adaptation and pathways to psychopathology. One set of interesting findings Prof. Hill presented outlined differences in the ways in which boys and girls are affected by low birth weight and prenatal maternal anxiety, and how this might influence later psychopathology, using a sample from the Wirral Child Health and Development Study. What they found was that low birth weight predicted higher vagal reactivity at 29 weeks only in girls, whilst prenatal maternal anxiety predicted lower vagal reactivity only in boys. Further studies have now followed these children up to 5 years of age and from these findings, it has been hypothesised that increases in vagal reactivity is associated with an increase in ODD symptoms in girls and a reduction of ODD symptoms in boys. From an early intervention stand-point, these findings are really interesting as it indicates that early markers of risk (such as low birth weight or prenatal maternal anxiety) may need to be considerate of slightly different processes in males and females.
Prof. Jonathan Hill – University of Reading
Next up was Jonathan Hill who was presenting findings looking at sex differences in adaptation and pathways to psychopathology. One set of interesting findings Prof. Hill presented outlined differences in the ways in which boys and girls are affected by low birth weight and prenatal maternal anxiety, and how this might influence later psychopathology, using a sample from the Wirral Child Health and Development Study. What they found was that low birth weight predicted higher vagal reactivity at 29 weeks only in girls, whilst prenatal maternal anxiety predicted lower vagal reactivity only in boys. Further studies have now followed these children up to 5 years of age and from these findings, it has been hypothesised that increases in vagal reactivity is associated with an increase in ODD symptoms in girls and a reduction of ODD symptoms in boys. From an early intervention stand-point, these findings are really interesting as it indicates that early markers of risk (such as low birth weight or prenatal maternal anxiety) may need to be considerate of slightly different processes in males and females.
Prof. Miriam Steele – The New School for Social Research
The final talk of the day came from Miriam Steele, presenting on the work of the Group Attachment-Based Intervention (GABI) which looks to prevent the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment in families that have already experienced trauma. GABI, developed by Dr. Anne Murphy and inspired by the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, is designed for families who have histories of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) with the aim of enhancing parent coping and resilience, in turn promoting secure parent-child attachment and preventing disorganised attachment relationships. The intervention works under a framework called R.E.A.R.I.N.G and involves parents with 0-3 year olds attending GABI up to three times a week for two hours, where families can learn parenting skills, share experiences, and meet with a range of therapists. It seems that purely based on the frequency of contact provided by the intervention, GABI can act as a secure base for families in amongst what’s, frequently, an otherwise chaotic life. Building on Mary Dozier’s talk from yesterday, the power of video was displayed once again when Prof. Steele showed us a moving clip of a mother’s response to seeing videos for the first time of her and her infant daughter interacting. We saw that the mother didn’t look solely to the therapists during feedback but also to the other mums taking part, which really highlighted the unique forms of support offered by interventions which have a group-based element.
The final talk of the day came from Miriam Steele, presenting on the work of the Group Attachment-Based Intervention (GABI) which looks to prevent the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment in families that have already experienced trauma. GABI, developed by Dr. Anne Murphy and inspired by the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth, is designed for families who have histories of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) with the aim of enhancing parent coping and resilience, in turn promoting secure parent-child attachment and preventing disorganised attachment relationships. The intervention works under a framework called R.E.A.R.I.N.G and involves parents with 0-3 year olds attending GABI up to three times a week for two hours, where families can learn parenting skills, share experiences, and meet with a range of therapists. It seems that purely based on the frequency of contact provided by the intervention, GABI can act as a secure base for families in amongst what’s, frequently, an otherwise chaotic life. Building on Mary Dozier’s talk from yesterday, the power of video was displayed once again when Prof. Steele showed us a moving clip of a mother’s response to seeing videos for the first time of her and her infant daughter interacting. We saw that the mother didn’t look solely to the therapists during feedback but also to the other mums taking part, which really highlighted the unique forms of support offered by interventions which have a group-based element.
I appear to have got a little carried away again in trying to “summarise” each the captivating array of studies which came through in the three talks of Day 2 – it was all just a little too interesting and noteworthy if you ask me! Tomorrow I aim to get on to Day 3 and not only touch on the key notes but also the highlights from the many symposia we were lucky enough to attend too!
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