Because depressive symptoms are associated with reduced cognitive resources, mothers may be unaware that their depressive symptoms have an inverse effect on their child's
perception of their emotional availability.
Left untreated, maternal depression leads to long - term depression in the mother, a
lack of emotional availability for the baby and detrimental outcomes in the development of the fetus, newborn and developing child.
Penn State researcher Douglas Teti examined the role
of emotional availability on infant sleep and found that regardless of a family's night - time routine, infants with parents who were responsive and warm had fewer night wakings and an easier time drifting off.
Her second book is The Universal Language of Love: Assessing Relationships Through the
Science of Emotional Availability, which describes how the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales might be used in personal relationships that involve parents and children, equal partner relationships, and leader - constituent relationships.
Results supported H1 as there was a significant negative relationship between maternal depression and child perceptions
of emotional availability from their mother (B = -1.06, SE =.24, t = -4.35, p <.001).
To our knowledge, to date no studies have examined the quality of mother — infant interactions in the context of infant massage through the
application of the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS; Biringen, 2008), nor have adopted a longitudinal approach.
Communication skills (the way in which partners share information, thoughts, and emotions by verbal and non-verbal exchange) is one
area of emotional availability that impacts the likelihood of an unfaithful liaison, and correlates with a sense of belonging within the partnership structure.
She has spearheaded the
understanding of emotional availability as a rigorous scientific assessment of parent - child relationships, and has observed thousands of hours of child - parent interactions in a wide variety of cultures.
Overall, results indicate that we were able to improve the observed
quality of emotional availability, using the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales, as well as decrease parenting stress and negative perceptions of the child.
In line with this conclusion, the results from this dyadic study highlight that levels of depressive symptoms in mothers is significantly related to levels of depressive symptoms in their adult children; and that this relationship can be explained, in part, by the
level of emotional availability a child perceives in their relationship with their mother, and a child's general social skills.
Recently, increasing attention has been given to the emotional features that accompany parenting routines; more specifically, an important contribution to the investigation of parenting has been given by the theoretical
frame of Emotional Availability (EA), which has pointed out the importance to create an emotional connection and to be able to share a wide range of affects during caretaking behaviors (Biringen, 2008; Biringen and Easterbrooks, 2012).
Left untreated, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders can lead to long - term depression in the mother, a
lack of emotional availability for the baby and detrimental outcomes in the development of the fetus, newborn and developing child.
Left untreated, maternal depression can lead to long - term depression in the mother, a lack
of emotional availability for the baby, and detrimental outcomes in the development of the fetus, newborn, and child.
The Universal Language of Love: Assessing Relationships Through the Science of Emotional Availability
This research examined the intergenerational transmission of depressive symptoms from mothers to their adult children through two succeeding mediators: a child's
perception of emotional availability from their mothers, and a child's social skills.
Taken together, these findings suggest that mother depressive symptoms transmit to offspring symptoms due in part to the effect that depressive symptoms have on a child's perception
of emotional availability and social skill development.
H1: Maternal depressive symptoms is negatively related to child perceptions
of emotional availability.
H1 stated that maternal depressive symptomology would be negatively related to child perceptions
of emotional availability.
As expected, mother reports of depressive symptoms negatively correlated with her adult child's perception
of emotional availability.
Developmental correlates and predictors
of emotional availability in mother — child interaction: A longitudinal study from infancy to middle childhood.