Maternal Autonomy Support in a Randomized Controlled Trial of the Reminiscing and Emotion Training Intervention

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Family Studies

Background:

• The Reminiscing and Emotion Training (RET) intervention aims to enhance maltreating mothers' reminiscing skills and children's emotion knowledge.
• Previous studies found that improved maternal reminiscing did not fully explain gains in children's emotion knowledge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if RET improves maternal autonomy support during reminiscing.
• To examine the association between maternal autonomy support and children's emotion knowledge post-intervention.

Main Methods:

• A randomized controlled trial involving 248 mothers and their children (3-6 years old).
• Maltreating mothers were randomized to RET or a control group; nonmaltreating mothers served as an additional control.
• Assessments included maternal/child language, dyadic reminiscing, and child emotion knowledge at baseline and follow-up.

Main Results:

• Maltreating mothers showed less baseline autonomy support than nonmaltreating mothers.
• The RET intervention did not significantly increase maternal autonomy support.
• Baseline maternal autonomy support positively correlated with children's emotion knowledge at both time points.

Conclusions:

• Maternal autonomy support during reminiscing may be crucial for developing children's emotion knowledge.
• Findings suggest potential targets for intervention beyond elaborative reminiscing.