Protecting the Child While Preserving the Relationship: Using Baby's Relational Withdrawal to Gauge the Effect of Parental Visitation

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2018 May 4

PMID 29723234

Citations 1

Authors

Alexandra Deprez

Jaqueline Wendland

Line Brotnow

Arno C Gutleb

Servane Contal

Antoine Guedeney

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The impact of children's interactions with parents in the context of out-of-home placements is receiving much-needed cross-disciplinary attention. However, the paucity of instruments that can reliably represent young children's experiences of such interactions precludes a nuanced evaluation of their impact on wellbeing and development. In response to this empirical gap, the present study investigates children's relational withdrawal as a clinically salient, easily observable and conceptually valid measure of infants' and toddlers' responses to parents. Relational withdrawal, challenging behaviors and salivary cortisol were assessed before, during and after parental visits. Conceptually, the findings suggest that observations of relational withdrawal correlate meaningfully with measure of neurobiological reactivity. Clinically, three profiles of cross-variable responses in children appeared, distinguishing between groups that experience increased, decreased or unchanged levels of stress in response to parental visits. Taken together, the findings lend empirical support to systematic observations of relational withdrawal to bolster evaluations of young children's experience of parental visitation during out-of-home placements.

Citing Articles

Infant Social Withdrawal Behavior: A Key for Adaptation in the Face of Relational Adversity.

Viaux-Savelon S, Guedeney A, Deprez A Front Psychol. 2022; 13:809309.

PMID: 35795430 PMC: 9252517. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.809309.

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