Can Infant Temperament Predict Anxiety Disorder - Research Paper Example

? Infant Temperament & Anxiety Disorder By 28th September Can Infant Temperament Predict Anxiety Disorder A child is one of the most beautiful gifts of nature, being blessed with a baby is a feeling that has an essence and joy of its own. But becoming a parent brings great responsibility and demands time and patience of parents. One of the exciting yet difficult parts of parenting is to understand your baby and its needs and requirements. As babies cannot communicate and are unable to express themselves like adults, parents need to analyse and make sense of their emotions, gestures and actions. The set of these emotions and actions in a social and personal environment constitutes the temperament of the baby. “Temperament characteristics can be seen in the new born and measured in the foetus.” (Rothbart 2007) “Children are predisposed to act in certain ways in a variety of contexts, and researchers have suggested constructs that attempt to define these regularities.” (Ratcliff 2006) There are many elements in a child’s life that build its temperament and one of the most important elements is the mother infant relationship. “The mother-infant relationship is an important factor in the young child’s social emotional functioning.” (Scaletti 2008) The involvement of a mother is very important in building and shaping the temperament of a child, the more sensitive the mother is to her child’s needs the more positive influence it will have on the child. The dimensions of temperament vary among researchers. Temperament is an amalgamation of both individual differences and biological traits and different studies have shown proves of both types. According to Thomas and Chess’s the temperaments can be divided into nine dimensions. These dimensions include: activity level which is characterised as being high or low and shows whether the child is active or not. Rhythmicity is another dimension which is marked by the infant being regular or irregular in his routines. Distractibility measures whether a child can be easily interrupted or not. Approach/withdrawal signifies whether the child appreciates newness or not. Adaptability is also one of the important dimensions showing the child’s ability to do new things. Another dimension which is studied for both adults and infants is the attention span and persistence. Infants are assessed between long and short attention spans. Reactiveness or the intensity of reaction is another dimension that is used for measuring and tracking down temperamental relations with behaviour. A child might cry loudly or sulk slowly as a response to an event showing his level of reactiveness. Another dimension is the threshold of responsiveness that determines how quickly the infant reacts to the introduction of an object or a change in situation. Lastly Thomas and Chess define quality of mood as a final determinant of temperament. These dimensions were used for determining the temperament and behavioural attributes of the infants. “We decided to test this concept by conducting a systematic long-term investigation of the differences in the behavioural reactions of infants.” (Thomas, Stella, & Birch, 1970) The study conducted by Thomas and Chess was called the New York Longitudinal Study. It started in 1956 and lasted for several years. “The New York Longitudinal Study (NYLS) has now followed the behavioural development of 133 subjects from middle and upper middle class families from early infancy to early adult life.” (Plomin & Dunn, 1986) This study was one of the methods used to assess the dimensions of temperament in infants. The study found that using the dimensions to gauge the temperament in infants yields some broad categories. The researchers categorized these dimensions into three broad categories in order to better explain and relate the findings of a comprehensive study. The first of the three categories was the easy child; forty percent of the infants belonged to this category and were comparatively less fussy than the other children. They rated positive on the dimension scale and exhibited positive behaviour in terms of responsiveness and reaction. Although they were less active then the other two categories but their regular routine and mellow needs made them easy to handle. The parents of such babies have an easy job at hand but the easy attitude may result in neglect and lack of attention from the parental side. The second category of the infants was the difficult child that encompassed ten percent of the infants. According to this type the infants were more demanding and exhibited irregular routines and extreme reactions. An infant in this category was less cheerful than the previous one and showed slow reaction to change. This category was the most difficult to take care of. Parents of these infants were constantly looking for ways and means to calm the behaviour of their young ones and keep pace with their continuous activities. The last category was the slow to warm-up, which constituted about fifteen percent of the population sample. This category was slow to response, react and adapt to new situations. The children in this category needed constant stimulation from their parents. Thus Thomas and Chess were the pioneers of the research in the field of infant temperament but their comprehensive research could only explain the behaviour of sixty-five percent of the population sample. Although the study lasted for a number of years and took the environmental factors and time into consideration but still it could not completely access the dimensions of the vast terminology of temperament. Another set of dimensions explaining infant temperament was the six dimensions given by Rothbart and Bates. “Temperament is defined by Rothbart and Bates as constitutionally based individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation.” (Demon & Learner, 2006) Reactivity means specific and general emotional responding whereas regulation deals with the temperamental reactivity. Rothbart and Bates gave the six dimensions of temperament namely fearful distress, irritable distress, attention span and persistence, activity level, positive effect and rhythmicity. Thus, the fear and negative dimensions affect a child’s social competence. Rothbart used the parent-report instrument for infant temperament and worked with the Infant Behaviour Questionnaire (IBQ) for charting the responses. Also Children Behaviour Questionnaire (CBQ) was developed to measure pre-school children’s temperamental characters. “The CBQ gives a more comprehensive assessment of childhood personality than do other variable instruments.” (Rothbart, Stephen & Evans, 2000) The children who exhibit positive attitude and activity level do well among their peer and conform to the norms of the environment in which they are placed. Thus, ranging from the classical approach to the temperamental studies of Thomas & Chess, Rothbart and the like different dimensions of temperament are studied and their role in building the personality and future well-being of infants is monitored. However, one of the major issues of temperament studies are its normative stability which questions the fact that how stable will be the reactions of people when repeated over time. In this case a way out is using the laboratory data that encompasses controlled emotions. “We take an empirical approach to temperamental stability, using data based on laboratory measures during infancy and parent-report measures in middle childhood.” (Molfese & Molfese, 2000) The relationship of temperament with different key variable is strong and many researches have been conducted in this area. The mental health of a child is a combination of his temperament, social and emotional milestones and the parental sensitivity and attachment. “Evidence supports the role of temperament in the origins of psychiatric disorders” (Dougherty, et al., 2011) Dougherty and other psychologists carried a research to prove the above mentioned evidence, using community samples of three-year olds and the findings showed correlation between temperament and psychopathology. Papers have also been written and researchers conducted by others on the same subject for example Sansun and Hemphill conducted a study to reveal a link between temperament and social development in children and adolescents. “It concludes that there are clear links between specific dimensions of temperament and particular aspects of social development. (Sansun, Hemphill & Smart, 2004) The temperament studies have also shed light upon temperament of infants and their resultant effect on the well-being of mother. Cutrona and Troutman worked on the Meditational Model of Postpartum Depression. “One result of caring for the temperamentally difficult infant may be gradual erosion in the mother’s feelings of competence as a parent.” (Cutrona & Troutman 1986) Studying temperament and parent-child interaction, Dunn and Kendrick have also supported parent involvement influences of infant temperament. “Differences in maternal behavior were associated with the reported differences in child temperament.” (Dunn & Kendrick 1980) Thus one can find many such researches that supports the influences of infant temperament on different variable, researches have shown positive temperament results in better mental health and feelings of attachment and parental sensitivity enhance the temperamental behaviors in an infant. Infant temperaments have also been shown predicting later personality and psychological disorders. An infant exhibiting positive temperament is healthy both mentally and physically and has a lesser probability of being diagnosed with a psychological disorder. But to prove this logic evidence has to be taken from researches and studies. In our above discussions we have analysed temperamental dimensions and their assessment and how temperament relates to variables of mental health, personal growth, attachment etc. In this last section we will focus our analysis on temperament’s ability to predict the psychological disorder: anxiety. “Paediatric anxiety is a serious condition affecting 6-10% of young children and adolescence.” (Lindhout et al. 2009) In his study Lindhout mentions that anxiety disorder can be related to early temperamental behaviours and parenting style, a shy child with overly controlling parents will most probably develop anxiety disorders in early and/or later part of his life. A study conducted in Spain also showed that: “negative affect or high motor level was related to anxious pathologies.” ( Laredo, et al., 2007) Other studies have been done to relate the early signs and traits of temperament to the later emergence of psychopathology in the form of anxiety and other related disorders. “A number of reviews have noted a variety of behavioural similarities between shy or inhibited temperamental groups and anxious individuals.” (Pe?rez-Edgar & Fox, 2005) Although there has been researches done relating temperament with anxiety multi-displinary research programs are needed that can create a better link between the two concepts. In conclusion, I would like to agree with the studies and the data that I have gone through and the analysis that I have presented in this report. However, there are points to ponder and all the research should not be taken at the face value. In my opinion, there is a connection between temperament, its dimensions and the psychological disorder under consideration; but it is not as strong and evident as it should. The researches have many limitations, ranging from sample size to parental bias. Also temperament can vary on situational basis and parents’ reply will be favoring the positive temperament of their infant which may not depict his actual temperament. Therefore, this is vast field and as more and more researches and studies will be conducted stronger evidence will grow and a more concrete link would be developed between, infant temperament and anxiety disorder. References Cutrona, C. E., & Troutman, B. R. (1986). Social support, infant temperament & parental efficacy: a mediation model of postpartum depression. Child Development, 57(6), 1507-1518 Damon, W., & Lerner, R. M. (2006). Handbook of child psychology - social, emotional and personality development. (6 ed., Vol. 3, p. 4). New Jersey: John Wiley & Inc. Dougherty, L.R. et al., (2011) Preschoolers’ Observed Temperament and Psychiatric Disorders Assessed with a Parent Diagnostic Interview. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 40(2), 295–306. Dunn, J., & Kendrick, C. (1980). Studying temperament & parent child interaction: comparison on interview and direct observation. Child Neurology, 22(4), 484-496 Laredo, A., et al., (2007). Temperamental dimension and anxiety problems in a clinical sample of three- to six-year old children: a study of variables. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 10(2), 399-407 Lindhout, I. E.et al., (2009). Temperament and parental child-rearing. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 18(7), 439-447 Molfese, V. J., & Molfese, D. L. (2000). Temperament and personality development across the life span. (p. 39). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Pe?rez-Edgar, K., & Fox, N. A. (2005). Temperament and anxiety disorders. Child Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics North America, 14, 681-706. Plomin, R., & Dunn, J. (1986). The study of temperament: changes, continuities & challenges. (p. 39). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Ratcliff, D. (2006, March 30). Temperament in childhood: three key dimensions: activity, emotionality & sociability. Retrieved from Rothbart, M. K. (2007). Temperament, development, and personality. Association for Psychological Science, 16(4), 204. Rothbart, M. K., Ahadi, S. A., & Evans, D. E. (2000). Temperament and personality: origins and outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(1), 122-135. Sanson, A., Hemphill, S. and Smart, D. (2004) Connections between Temperament and Social Development: A Review. Social Development 13, 142-170. Scaletti, L. A (2008). Infant temperament & maternal sensitivity: predictors of behavioral problems. (p. 01). NY: UMI Microform. Thomas, A., Stella, C., & Birch, H. G. (1970). Origin of personality. Scientific American, 102-109. Read More