Maternal bonding behavior, adult intimate relationship, and quality of life.

Continuity and discontinuity in the development of social relationships have been investigated by reviewing the course of social bonds and by analyzing the effects of a sound intimate relationship in adulthood in conjunction with recalled maternal bonding on the quality of life among students.A questionnaire-based study of 207 students was conducted. Perceptions of maternal bonding were designated as being representative of one of the two contrasting bonding types "optimal maternal bonding" and "affectionless maternal control" assessed by the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and combined with perceptions of a sound intimate adult relationship measured by the Family Assessment Measure III Dyadic Relationships Scale (FAM-III-D). Quality of life and general health data were determined by using the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) instrument.Students who reported "optimal maternal bonding" had intimate relationships in adulthood that were of significantly higher quality than those who recalled "affectionless maternal control". Students who recalled "optimal maternal bonding" and described their intimate relationship as sound showed significantly higher scores in all domains of quality of life and indicated having better general health than those who reported "affectionless maternal control" and a sound intimate relationship.A sound intimate relationship in adulthood does not appear to compensate the impact of a recalled maternal bonding behavior in terms of affectionless control, on quality of life. Furthermore, results seem to support the hypothesis of continuity of the development of social relationships among psychologically well individuals based on the association between maternal bonding and later intimate relationships.

[Parenting Stress Index and specific language impairment]. / Parenting Stress Index: Einsatz bei Müttern sprachentwicklungsgestörter Kinder.

The aim of the present study was to get a differentiated view of stress experience of mothers of children with a specific language impairment with a standardised questionnaire. Our sample consisted of 63 mothers of language impaired children between 3.0 and 6.5 years consecutively recruited at the University-ENT clinic of Vienna. Parenting stress was assessed by the "Parenting Stress Index" of Abidin (1995) and the results were compared to mothers of a control group matched by sex and age of the children. The results showed significant mean differences between mothers of the clinical and the control group. In nearly all subscales mothers of language impaired children have higher stress scores than mothers of the control group. 68% of mothers of the clinical group are exposed to above-average stress levels whereas only 1.5% of mothers of children with normal language development show above-average parenting stress. For a successful intervention on children with a specific language impairment it seems to be very important to identify parental stressors and to treat and support parents too.

Behaviour in children with language development disorders.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the study was to explore the univariate and multivariate differences in behavioural problems among children with disorders in expressive or mixed receptive-expressive language development and children with unimpaired language development. METHOD: Ninety-four children with language development disorders (LDD) between the ages of 4 and 6 years and 94 children (matched by age and sex) without disorders of language development were compared concerning behavioural problems, as measured by the German version of the Child Behavior Checklist/4-18. RESULTS: Thirty-two children (34%) with LDD showed behavioural problems in the clinical range, whereas only 6 control subjects (6%) had scores in this range. Univariate group comparisons between patients and control subjects showed significant differences in all 8 syndromes and the scale "other problems," with patients having higher scores. Multivariate stepwise discriminant analysis showed a significant discriminant function by the scales "other problems," "social problems," "anxious-depressed," "thought problems," "attention problems," and "delinquent problems." CONCLUSIONS: In general, our results agree with several studies that report that children with speech and language disorders are at special risk for developing behavioural problems. Neurodevelopmental immaturity may be one factor underlying both the disorder in language development and the behavioural problems.