Byron Egeland - US grants

The purpose of this proposal is to evaluate STEEP, a preventive/intervention program for high risk mothers. The major goal is to foster a healthy emotional relationship between mother and infant, thus promoting healthy social-emotional development in the child. The program begins at approximately the fifth month of pregnancy and involves both home visits and group sessions throughout the first year of the infant's life. STEEP is designed to help the mother better understand her infant and her relationship with her infant; to be more sensitive to infant cues and signals; to better interpret infant behavior, particularly within a developmental framework; to improve perspective taking skills. Because a mother's own unmet needs often render her less able to meet her child's needs, the intervention also focuses on the mother, attempting to help her develop ways of coping with the demands of her life and ensuring that her needs are met. The flexible design of the STEEP program enables the interventers to address each mother's unique life situation and build on her special skills and strengths. Primaparous women who are patients at the Hennepin County Medical Center, who are from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, are 18 years and older, and who are judged to be at risk for later caretaking problems, would be randomly assigned either to the preventative/intervention program (n=64) or the control group (n=64). To evaluate the program, comprehensive measures would be used. The quality of the attachment of mother-child pairs would be assessed upon completion of the program and one year later the quality of the relationship and the child's social-emotional competence would be assessed in a tool-use problem-solving situation. In addition, both groups would be pretested, post, and delayed posttested, using other measures of the child's developmental status, as well as measures of the mother's interest, feelings, and understanding of infants.

We propose to continue a comprehensive and detailed study of individual adaptation from birth through the childhood years. The sample (N= 267, 190 at age 12) was recruited to be at risk for developmental problems due to poverty and associated risk factors. Increased maladaptation has been demonstrated at each age; yet, the whole range of adaptation exists in the sample. Factors associated wit both competence and maladaptation have been described, including family and parenting influences, child characteristics at various developmental phases, and contextual factors. We have found notable stability of individual adaptation, and we have found prior maladaptation itself to be a powerful risk factor, in part due to its influence on later environment. In addition, we have shown change to be lawful. We have begun to define processes underlying continuity, including the internalization of experiences into "working models," and to uncover the origins of various forms of childhood disturbance. These studies now will be extended into the critical adolescent years when for many children maladaptive patterns will become more prominent, while others may experience opportunities for dramatic change. Our strategy will be to first describe patterns of adaptation with respect to the salient issues of adolescence (identify exploration, emancipation within the family, intimacy with peers, and job/school success), as well as current expectations concerning relationships and various emotional and behavioral problems. These will be related to current family functioning and other contextual influences and to prior patterns of adaptation assessed at each earlier phase, which also were keyed to salient developmental issues. Major foci include examining continuity of adaptation over time, the interaction of risk and protective factors, variables that moderate relations over time, and factors associated with significant change in adaptation.

We propose to continue a comprehensive and detailed study of individual adaptation from birth through the childhood years. The sample (N= 267, 190 at age 12) was recruited to be at risk for developmental problems due to poverty and associated risk factors. Increased maladaptation has been demonstrated at each age; yet, the whole range of adaptation exists in the sample. Factors associated wit both competence and maladaptation have been described, including family and parenting influences, child characteristics at various developmental phases, and contextual factors. We have found notable stability of individual adaptation, and we have found prior maladaptation itself to be a powerful risk factor, in part due to its influence on later environment. In addition, we have shown change to be lawful. We have begun to define processes underlying continuity, including the internalization of experiences into "working models," and to uncover the origins of various forms of childhood disturbance. These studies now will be extended into the critical adolescent years when for many children maladaptive patterns will become more prominent, while others may experience opportunities for dramatic change. Our strategy will be to first describe patterns of adaptation with respect to the salient issues of adolescence (identify exploration, emancipation within the family, intimacy with peers, and job/school success), as well as current expectations concerning relationships and various emotional and behavioral problems. These will be related to current family functioning and other contextual influences and to prior patterns of adaptation assessed at each earlier phase, which also were keyed to salient developmental issues. Major foci include examining continuity of adaptation over time, the interaction of risk and protective factors, variables that moderate relations over time, and factors associated with significant change in adaptation.

DESCRIPTION (adapted from the investigator's abstract): We are following 178 individuals from birth and now to age 29. These children were born at risk due to poverty and associated factors, such as teenage motherhood and low parent education. The overriding goal of this project has been to trace the course of individual development from infancy to adulthood and to understand factors that guide it toward positive adaptation or mal-adaptation. Assessments have been detailed, comprehensive, and age-by-age. We carried out 7 assessments in infancy alone, and 15 more from early childhood into adulthood. Our emphasis has been on parenting (attachment, support, guidance) but we also studied temperament, language development, IQ, and peer relationships. Thus, when family factors predict development we can WI. out alternative explanations and we can see how various influences (e.g., parents and peers) combine to predict outcomes. We also study child expectations and representations of early experience, and family life stress and support, which help account for change in parenting and change in individual development Activities for the proposed grant period (ages 24-29) include assessments of atta aboutnments in education, work, and personal life goals, adult representation of attachment, and psychopathology. 'i addition, for paTti :ipants in romantic relationships andlor having children, detailed assesments will be conducted. Each of aboutiese outcomes about 14 Ii aboute'i to earlier assessment' prom infancy forward. Such a study uniquely allows us to now ar aboutswer questions such as (1) to what extent is the way a person parents about child directly (or indirectly) influenced by the way they were o aboutserveo to be parented?; (2)how do cumulative peer experiences and family experiences (beginning in infancy)combine to predict quality of adult relationships?; and (3)what are the various pathways to disorder beginning in the early years? The study is relevant to the early identification and prevention of disorder as well as to understanding factors that promote health and growth