The contribution of maternal executive functions and active coping to dyadic affective dynamics: Children with autism spectrum disorder and their mothers

Abstract

Parenting is a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral endeavor, where parents’ control capacities, including executive functions and active control coping, help parents to guide and regulate interactions with their children; yet limited research investigates how these capacities are associated with parent–child affective regulation processes during parent–child interactions. This study examined whether maternal executive functions (sustained attention, interference inhibitory control, working memory) and active engaged coping were related to dyadic affective flexibility and positive mutual affective interactions between mothers and their young children with autism spectrum disorders (N = 40). Dyadic flexibility and mutual positive affect were measured using dynamic systems-based modeling of second-by-second affective patterns during a mother–child interaction. The results showed that higher levels of maternal sustained attention and inhibitory control were related to increased dyadic affective flexibility. In addition, higher levels of maternal sustained attention and higher use of engaged coping were related to dyadic mutual positive affect. The findings highlight the importance of maternal cognitive control capacity in promoting adaptive parent–child dyadic regulatory processes.