Attention biases and social-emotional development in preschool-aged children who have been exposed to domestic violence

Tessie Mastorakos; Katreena L Scott

doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.01.001

Attention biases and social-emotional development in preschool-aged children who have been exposed to domestic violence

Child Abuse Negl. 2019 Mar:89:78-86. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.01.001. Epub 2019 Jan 11.

Authors

Tessie Mastorakos¹, Katreena L Scott²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1V6, Canada.
² Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. West, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 1V6, Canada. Electronic address: mailkatreena.scott@utoronto.ca.

PMID: 30639972
DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.01.001

Abstract

Background: School-aged children and adolescents exposed to domestic violence (DV) disproportionality attend to threatening and sad cues in their environment. This bias in attention has been found to predict elevations in symptoms of psychopathology. Studies have yet to explore attention biases using eyetracking technology in preschool-aged children with DV exposure.

Objective: This study investigated whether preschool-aged children exposed to DV show vigilance to angry and sad faces versus happy faces and a target non-face stimulus relative to non-exposed children, and whether such vigilance relates to child social-emotional development.

Participants and setting: Preschool-aged children were recruited from a large, diverse, urban community. DV-exposed children were recruited from a dyadic, mother-child treatment group specifically designed for, and restricted to, mothers who have experienced domestic violence (DV-exposed group, n = 23). Children with no prior exposure to DV and their mothers were recruited within the same community (non-exposed group, n = 32).

Methods: Children completed an eye-tracking task to assess their attention to face stimuli and mothers rated their children's social-emotional development. Total duration of fixations were analyzed.

Results: Results showed that DV-exposed children have a significantly stronger attention bias away from sad faces (p = 0.03; d = 0.62) and neutral faces (p = 0.02; d = 0.70) relative to non-exposed children, and this attention bias away from sad and neutral faces is associated with child social-emotional problems. Contrary to our hypothesis, no bias towards anger was found for DV-exposed versus non-exposed children.

Conclusions: This study contributes to growing evidence that young children's negative attention biases influence functioning and have important implications for children's well-being and development.

Keywords: Attention bias; Child maltreatment; Domestic violence; Socialemotional.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Anger / physiology
Attention / physiology*
Child
Child Development / physiology
Child, Preschool
Domestic Violence / psychology*
Emotions / physiology*
Exposure to Violence / psychology*
Female
Humans
Male
Mothers / psychology