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Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Measuring Cardiac Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Activity in Toddlers - Resting and Developmental Challenges
08:22

Measuring Cardiac Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Activity in Toddlers - Resting and Developmental Challenges

Published on: February 25, 2016

Observational measures of parenting in anxious and nonanxious mothers: does type of task matter?

Golda S Ginsburg1, Rachel L Grover, Jennalee J Cord

  • 1Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA. gginsbu@jhmi.edu

Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology : the Official Journal for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53
|April 7, 2006
PubMed

This study examined the relation between type of parent-child interaction task and parenting behaviors among a predominantly African American community-based sample. Twenty-five anxious and matched nonanxious (N = 50) mothers were videotaped with their children (M age = 5.8 years) engaging in both a structured and unstructured task. Blind raters coded 3 parent behaviors hypothesized to play a role in the development of child anxiety: overcontrol, anxious behavior, and criticism. Results indicated that higher levels of overcontrol, anxious behavior, and criticism were found in the structured compared to unstructured task. Levels of criticism, among anxious mothers only, were significantly correlated across tasks. Results suggest that situation specific aspects of parent-child interaction tasks may influence parenting behaviors. These findings help explain variations in observational research in the anxiety literature and highlight the need for careful selection of parent-child tasks in future research.

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