Maternal sensitivity
Maternal sensitivity is a mother's ability to perceive and infer the meaning behind her infant's behavioural signals, and to respond to them promptly and appropriately.
[9] Maternal sensitivity was first defined by Mary Ainsworth as "a mother's ability to perceive and interpret accurately her infant's signals and communications and then respond appropriately".
As the focus of psychoanalytics shifted from individuals (particularly adults) to children, research studies on mother–infant dyads, on the effects of early childhood on development, and on pregnancy became wider.
Mary Ainsworth, who worked with Bowlby, along with her colleagues created the concept of maternal sensitivity in 1978 in order to describe early mother–infant interaction observed in her empirical studies.
A sensitive mother needs to be able to perceive the cues and signals her baby gives her, interpret them correctly and act appropriately.
[12][13] Maternal sensitivity is most commonly assessed during naturalistic observation of free play interactions between mother and child.
[14] The Strange Situation was developed by Mary Ainsworth in the 1970s to assess attachment relationships between caregivers and children between 9 and 18 months old.
[5] In the Strange Situation, the toddler's behavior and stress is observed during a 21-minute free-play session through a one-way glass window as the caregiver and strangers come into and leave the room.
[16] The related concept of maternal mind-mindedness assesses the mother's ability to understand and verbalize the infant's mind: thoughts, desires, intentions and memories.
Their child's growth (height and weight) was monitored throughout their childhood, from 24 months all the way to grade six, and body mass index was calculated.
[1] Current studies have shown a correlation between maternal sensitivity or insensitivity, negative discipline and childhood aggression.
An experiment sampling 117 mother–child pairs showed a unique relationship between the mother's sensitivity and the use of discipline and the child's temperament level.
[21] Maternal sensitivity has been shown to teach infants attentional skills, which are necessary later in life for emotional control, and other more complex cognitive processes.
[23] Furthermore, in the newborn period, women who displayed high maternal sensitivity had children who were able to regulate their emotions and who had higher symbolic and cognitive skills.
In the case of the triplets, the child that received the least maternal sensitivity was the one that showed the poorest outcomes cognitively and had the most medical problems.
In particular, some research suggests that children of more sensitive caregivers have high levels of effortful (i.e. emotional and behavioural) control.
They were not able to present an accurate description of their parents by use of memories, they were found to idealize experiences and are more likely to remember situations in which they were rejected.
This causes the adolescent mother to be more insensitive to their baby's needs, possibly because of lack of need understanding, and therefore have lower maternal sensitivity and a less secure attachment to their infants.
[29] Although adolescent mothers have been found to display lower maternal sensitivity, there is no evidence that maternal age itself has a negative effect on child development, as other factors at that age such as education and financial status may play a role in the insensitivity of the mother towards the child as well.
The scale is based on naturalistic observations completed by Ainsworth over a period of several hours and thus has no short procedure outline.
In order for this measurement to be accurate, it is essential that the researcher has developed good observations and insight into the behaviour of the caregiver.
[32] The standard version of the Q-sort consists of 90 items that measure maternal sensitivity with regards to accessibility, responsiveness and promptness to the child's needs and there are many variations.
Pederson and Moran based their Q-sort on the Waters Attachment Q-Set, which is an assessment of the behavior of children.
[9] The Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification (AMBIANCE) scale was developed by Elisa Bronfman, Elizabeth Parsons and Karlen Lyons-Ruth.
