description): Over a 5-year period, the candidate will participate in training and didactic experiences with mentors and teachers in the areas of infant/child development and social/emotional functioning, developmental psychopathology, child maltreatment, maternal- infant interaction, maternal-infant observational assessment, as well as study in research methodology, biostatistics, and public health. These training experiences will prepare the candidate for developing a pilot study which will be conducted during from the middle of the second through the middle of the fifth years of the funding period. The study will involve recruiting and interviewing 120 low-income high-risk mothers at a prenatal baseline and then prospectively assessing 60 of them with their infant/toddler in clinic visits at two longitudinal follow-ups (i.e., 6- and 15-months postpartum). The overall goal of the study is to explore atypical (e.g., disorganized) attachment patterns within a high risk urban sample and identify prenatal factors (e.g., maternal internal working models, maternal psychosocial and personality functioning, parenting attitudes) that may be predictive of maladaptive attachment, infant social/emotional problems and competencies, and risk for child maltreatment. Through the process of training, education, and pilot work the candidate will develop knowledge/skill in evaluating (1) maternal working models, (2) parenting expectancies/abilities, (3) parent- infant interaction (adaptive, neglectful, traumatic), (4) infant psychosocial development, and (5) research design and statistical techniques for modeling these complex constructs and their interrelationships. With the collection of pilot maternal, infant, and interactional/observational data the candidate hopes to develop an empirically based conceptual framework and the necessary methodological skills to preliminarily address several questions related to attachment and child maltreatment: 1) How are maternal internal working models (assessed prenatally) associated with specific parenting attitudes, with later infant attachment security, with infant social and emotional problems and competencies at 15 months, and with risk for child maltreatment? 2) Is the quality of maternal internal working models (i.e. balanced, disengaged, distorted) associated systematically with specific patterns of infant attachment in a high risk sample (e.g., balanced-secure; disengaged-avoidant; distorted-anxious)? Finally, is the quality of maternal internal representations related to risks for specific types of maltreatment (e.g., disengaged-neglect, distorted-physical abuse)? The overall aim of this project is to prepare the candidate to conduct subsequent prospective and treatment development studies with R-01 and R-23 funding that will provide an empirical basis for enhanced early prevention and intervention by identifying predictors of severe attachment, social and emotional dysfunction in children and the potential for child maltreatment.
