An assessment of the mediating role of maternal behaviour in interventions aimed at improving child socioemotional and cognitive development
Maternal interactive sensitivity plays a critical role in early child development. In high-risk contexts, maternal sensitivity has often been shown to be deficient in many ways, leading to the development of intervention strategies that specifically target it. Many of these strategies have been evaluated within different types of experimental designs. These studies are important because of their evident clinical relevance, but also because studies that involve interventions provide greater information on causal processes between sensitivity and development, than do correlational designs. Attachment-based intervention, targeting the quality of mother-infant interaction, has been shown to be effective in improving maternal sensitivity, as well as child cognitive, social and emotional outcome. The specific causal processes by which these strategies modify child development remain uncertain, however. The most likely hypothesis is that changes in maternal behavior are causally linked to changes in development. However, this hypothesis has been specifically tested in only five studies where mediation by maternal sensitivity of the relation between exposure to intervention and changes in development has been examined. This article addresses the proposed causal relation between maternal sensitivity and child development with an emphasis on studies that have applied an intervention strategy targeting the former. Results indicate that the often presumed causality is only partially supported, notably in experimental studies. In light of these findings, alternative processes that might account for intervention efficacy and changes in development are proposed