The Structure of Parent-Child Dyadic Synchrony in Toddlerhood and Children's Communication...

The Structure of Parent–Child DyadicSynchrony in Toddlerhood and Children’sCommunication Competence andSelf-controlEric W. Lindsey, Penn State Berks, Penny R. Cremeens, OklahomaState University, Malinda J. Colwell and Yvonne M. Caldera, TexasTech University

Abstract

The aim of the present investigation was to examine parent–child synchrony and its linkto children’s communicative competence and self-control. Data were collected from 80families with toddler age children (41 girls, 39 boys) during a laboratory assessment.Five components of parent–child dyadic synchrony were assessed during a semi-structured parent–child play activity at 18 months. Assessments of children’s commu-nicative competence and self-control were obtained at 36 months. Results indicatedthat parent–child synchrony, shared positive affect, and mutual compliance werehighly intercorrelated components of dyadic synchrony. Moreover, children from highlysynchronous parent–child dyads displayed more communicative competence and moreself-controlled behavior. Mother–child mutual compliance and father–child sharedpositive affect were particularly significant contributors to children’s self control. Theassociations between synchrony and child developmental adjustment remained signifi-cant after controlling for individual child and parent behavior. Developmental impli-cations and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: parent–child; synchrony; communication competence; self-control

Introduction

There is increasing recognition among socialization researchers that the parent–childrelationship may be best characterized by bidirectional, as opposed to unidirectional,processes (see Kuczynski, 2003, for review). This view has emerged from a wealth ofempirical research focusing on a diverse array of constructs to operationalize dyadicqualities of parent–child interaction. Recently, Harrist and Waugh (2002) proposed thatthe general concept of dyadic synchrony best captures an array of interactive behaviorsbetween parent and child such as responsiveness, reciprocity, mutuality, and sharedemotion (Harrist & Waugh, 2002). A key characteristic of synchrony is its dyadicquality. That is, the construct reflects the interaction style of the parent–child dyad

Correspondence should be addressed to Eric W. Lindsey, Department of Applied Psychology, PennState Berks, 7009 Tulpehocken Road, Reading, PA 19610. Email: [email protected]

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2008.00489.x

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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rather than the individual behavior of the parent or child (Criss, Shaw, & Ingoldsby,2003; Harrist, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 1994; Lindsey, Mize, & Pettit, 1997). Conse-quently, dyadic synchrony is thought to capture the ‘systemic wholeness’ andco-constructed nature of parent–child interaction (Fogel, 1993; Harrist & Waugh,2002). Moreover, dyadic synchrony has been found to have unique implications forchildren’s developmental adjustment relative to a specific parent or child behavior(e.g., Harrist, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 1994; Lindsey et al., 1997).

Although Harrist and Waugh (2002) provide a well-articulated and convincingrationale concerning the use of synchrony as an organizing concept for a variety ofsimilar phenomena, it remains unclear as to what constellation of interactive behaviorsbest represent dyadic synchrony. A number of studies have assessed dyadic synchronyusing a global construct that includes elements of shared emotion, joint attention, andverbal turn taking (e.g., Harrist, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 1994; Mize & Pettit, 1997).This operationalization of dyadic synchrony has been linked to children’s aggression(Harrist, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 1994), social skills (Lindsey et al., 1997), and peerrelationships (Mize & Pettit, 1997). At the same time, however, there is evidence thatthe global construct of dyadic synchrony and the discrete constituent interactivebehaviors of which it is composed may make independent contributions to children’sadjustment. For example, Isabella and Belsky (1991) found that different aspects ofsynchrony were related to mother–infant attachment status. Similarly, Lindsey andMize (2000a) found that dyadic synchrony and father–child mutual compliance madeunique contributions to children’s social competence with peers. These findings raisequestions concerning what exactly is being tapped by the global dyadic synchronyconstruct and whether some of the discrete components that make up dyadic synchronymay have unique links to children’s adjustment. Efforts to more clearly operationalizethe meaning of dyadic synchrony would benefit from research that systematicallyexamines its constituent components.

One important component of dyadic synchrony that has received considerableempirical attention of its own is affect synchrony, also referred to as shared emotion,mutual affect, and emotional reciprocity. Specifically, a pattern of emotional commu-nication between parent and child characterized by a mutual acknowledgment ofemotional signals is considered to be an important marker of synchronous interaction(Kochanska & Aksan, 1995). Moreover, evidence suggests that the level of parent–child emotional responsiveness can either support or place at risk the child’s devel-oping social-emotional capabilities. For example, recent work on connections betweenparent–child interaction and children’s social competence suggests that parent–childemotional reciprocity has a particular significance for children’s developmentaladjustment (Boyum & Parke, 1995; Carson & Parke, 1996). As Harrist and Waugh(2002) point out, however, dyadic synchrony can occur without the presence of emo-tional expressions or in instances when one partner is expressing negative emotion andthe other partner is responding in a neutral or positive way. The authors also describehow synchronous interaction accompanied by shared negative emotion between part-ners may be indicative of a less optimal relationship, as suggested by evidence con-cerning the role of mutually negative emotion in coercive family processes (e.g.,Patterson, 1993; Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992). Consequently, additional researchis needed to examine the role that shared emotion may play in the structure of dyadicsynchrony.

Another component of dyadic synchrony that has been studied under a diverse set ofconstructs is the reciprocal and contingent verbal interactions between parent and

376 Eric W. Lindsey, Penny R. Cremeens, Malinda J. Colwell et al.

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2008 Social Development, 18, 2, 2009

child. Specifically, beginning around toddlerhood, when children are able to assume amore active and creative role in initiating, maintaining, and continuing co-ordinatedsocial exchanges (Rutter & Durkin, 1987; Vizziello, Ferrero, & Musicco, 2000),synchronous parent–child interaction is characterized by reciprocal and mutually bal-anced patterns of verbal initiations and responses. Evidence suggests that a greaterbalance in the give-and-take of parent–child initiations is associated with children’sbetter functioning in school (Baldwin, Cole, & Baldwin, 1982), that a more eventurn-taking style and contingent pattern of responses to initiations between parent andchild is associated with higher sociometric status in the peer group (Black & Logan,1995), and that children from parent–child dyads who demonstrate greater mutualbalance in complying to play initiations are better liked by peers (Lindsey & Mize,2000ab; Lindsey et al., 1997). However, evidence also indicates that assessments ofparent–child mutual initiation and mutual compliance are not necessarily related to oneanother and that both make independent contributions to children’s social competencewith peers relative to parent–child synchrony (Lindsey & Mize, 2000b; Lindsey et al.,1997). Therefore, it remains unclear as to what extent these aspects of parent–childverbal interaction represent a meaningful component of parent–child synchrony.

To identify the elements that make up the structure of dyadic synchrony, it isimportant to examine their relative association with theoretically relevant adjustmentoutcomes. Harrist and Waugh (2002) argue that dyadic synchrony between child andcaregiver during toddlerhood serves the function of promoting children’s skills intwo major areas: communication competence and self-control. Communicative com-petence refers to a broad array of language skills that begin to manifest themselvesduring the second year of life, including first spontaneous words, combinatorialspeech, and the use of language to talk about the past (see Bloom, 1993; Tamis-LeMonda, Bornstein, & Baumwell, 2001). Harrist and Waugh (2002) identified avariety of ‘synchrony-related’ behaviors between caregiver and child that have beenlinked to children’s communicative competence, including joint attention (Harris,Kasari, & Sigman, 1996), verbal turn taking (Dromi, 1993), and contingent languageusage (Snow, 1984). The majority of these ‘synchrony-like’ constructs, however,focus on patterns of parent–child language usage. Consequently, connectionsbetween these synchrony measures and children’s language ability may be an artifactof their connection to children’s language skill. Moreover, evidence suggests thatchildren’s emotional expressiveness (Bloom & Capatides, 1987; Tamis-LeMondaet al., 2001), as well as the pattern of emotional matching between mother and child(Feldman & Greenbaum, 1997; Nicely, Tamis-LeMonda, & Bornstein, 1999), islinked to children’s language skills. To date, however, no single study has examinedthe relative contribution of emotional reciprocity and verbal turn taking, as well asother dimensions of parent–child synchronous behavior, to children’s languageskills.

Harrist and Waugh (2002) also propose that the experience of synchrony in tod-dlerhood may facilitate the development of self-control by providing children withan opportunity to ‘practice self-regulatory skills as they learn to comply with adultwishes’ (p. 573). Parent–child synchrony may contribute to children’s self-regulationby creating a climate that is conducive to children’s eagerness to be socialized(Wahler & Smith, 1999). Consistent with this perspective, Harrist and Waugh (2002)cite several studies linking synchrony-related constructs to both child compliance toparents (Rescorla & Fechnay, 1996; Rocissano, Slade, & Lynch, 1987) and chil-dren’s self-regulation outside the home (Feldman, Greenbaum, & Yirmiya, 1999).

Parent–Child Dyadic Synchrony 377


More direct evidence comes from a study by Kochanska and Aksan (1995), whofound that mother–child mutual positive emotion contributed to children’s commit-ted compliance to maternal demands and to children’s self-restraint from playingwith a prohibited toy when the mother was not present. In a subsequent longitudinalstudy, Kochanska (1997) found that toddlers from mother–child dyads characterizedby greater shared co-operation and more shared positive emotion were more likelyto refrain from a prohibited act in the absence of their mother, clean up a set oftoys without an adult present, and resist researcher’s prompts to violate rules ofconduct, one year later. To the best of our knowledge, this is the only study to datethat has assessed multiple components of parent–child synchrony in relation to chil-dren’s self-control. It will be worthwhile to attempt to replicate this finding and toexamine other aspects of parent–child synchrony that may be related to children’sself-control.

Harrist and Waugh (2002) join other researchers (Criss et al., 2003; Garcia-Sellers& Church, 2000) in suggesting that parent and child gender may account for variationsin the manifestation of synchrony, as well as differences in connections betweensynchrony and children’s adjustment. Although few studies have included fathers,among those that have, evidence is mixed concerning differences between mother–child and father–child synchrony. A number of studies indicate that mother–child andfather–child dyads are relatively similar in terms of their synchronous behavior, andthat within the same family there is concordance between mother–child and father–child synchronous interaction (Lindsey & Mize, 2000b; Lindsey et al., 1997). Otherstudies have found that mother–child dyads are more synchronous than father–childdyads (Feldman & Eidelman, 2004). In a similar vein, evidence for child genderdifferences is mixed. Although the majority of studies have found no differencesbetween girls and boys (Lindsey & Mize, 2000b), other studies report that parent–soninteractions are more synchronous than parent–daughter interactions (Weinberg,Tronick, Cohn, & Olson, 1999). Because of variations in operational definitions ofsynchrony across studies, it is possible that patterns of differences based on parent–child gender may depend on the particular behavioral dimension of synchrony that isassessed. Given the limited number of studies that have included both mother andfather, and the lack of investigation of different components of synchrony, it is worth-while to explore parent and child gender differences in manifestations of synchronousbehavior.

The primary objective of this study was to examine the structure of parent–childdyadic synchrony by assessing multiple components of synchronous behavior. Fivemeasures of dyadic synchrony were selected: (1) a global measure of parent–childdyadic reciprocity tapping the degree of co-ordinated and contingent behavioral andverbal exchanges between parent and child; (2) a microanalytic measure of sharedpositive emotion, tapping the expression of contingent positive emotion by parentand child; (3) a microanalytic measure of shared negative emotion, tapping theexpression of contingent negative emotion by parent and child; (4) a microanalyticmeasure of mutual initiation, tapping the extent to which parent and child werebalanced in the number of initiations they made toward one another; and (5) amicroanalytic measure of mutual compliance, tapping the extent to which parent andchild were balanced in their compliance to one another’s play initiations. It wasexpected that all measures of dyadic synchrony would be inter-correlated. A secondaim was to explore the link between parent–child dyadic synchrony and children’sdevelopmental adjustment in two domains: (1) communicative competence and (2)



self-control. It was anticipated that indicators of parent–child dyadic synchronyduring toddlerhood would significantly predict individual differences in children’scommunicative competence and self-control during preschool. The relative contribu-tions of different components of dyadic synchrony were compared to identifywhether specific aspects of synchrony were differentially related to specific aspectsof child development. Finally, the role of parent and child gender was explored in themanifestation of dyadic synchrony and in connections between synchrony and chil-dren’s developmental adjustment.

Method

Participants

The participants in the research reported here were parents and toddlers at the Kansassite of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) studyof early child care, a multi-site longitudinal study. Initially, 134 families were recruitedin the hospital at the time of the child’s birth from two small cities in Kansas (69 boysand 65 girls). All children were full-term and healthy at the time of birth. A conditionalrandom sampling technique was used in selecting the sample to ensure there wasdiversity in the economic, educational, ethnic, and family structural characteristics ofthe sample. Nevertheless, the sample was predominately non-Hispanic White andmiddle class (116 White, 8 African-American, 3 Asian, 2 American Indian, and 5Other; 11 of the 134 participant families also identified as Hispanic). Mean age ofmothers was 27.2 (SD = 5.5). The sample was well educated, with mothers havingcompleted 14.4 years of education (SD = 2.5). For further information on the sampleselection and larger study design, see NICHD Early Child Care Research Network(2006).

With the mothers and children already participating in the primary study, fatherswere recruited to participate in additional (site specific) data collection during visits tothe families’ homes when the target children were 15 months of age. Out of 134families in the larger study, 112 (83.6 percent) had biological fathers or partners(N = 7) living in the household. Eighty-eight of the 112 fathers (78.6 percent) agreedto participate in the larger study. Unavailability of fathers at the time of the family visitwas the primary reason given for fathers not participating.

The sample for the present study consisted of 80 families for whom complete datafrom mother and father laboratory observations were obtained. Analyses revealed nosignificant differences between these families and the 54 families for whom father datawere not available, on any demographic variables. The majority of families were White(85.9 percent), with both biological parents living in the home (92.2 percent). Inparticipating families, 11 percent of mothers were without a high school education, 15percent of fathers were without a high school education, 53 percent of mothers and 68percent of fathers worked full-time, 25 percent of mothers and 36 percent of fathersworked part-time, and 24 percent of mothers and 15 percent of fathers were notemployed. Finally, mothers reported their total family income by choosing from 18annual income ranges (from less than $5 000 to over $200 000). The midpoint of eachrange was used to compute the income-to-needs (ITN) ratio discussed below. Annualfamily income ranged from $10 000 to $180 000, with a mean of $39 219, a median of$35 000, and a standard deviation of $25 855 (approximately 18 percent of familiesreceived income assistance). The children were nearly equally represented by gender at



18 months (41 females and 39 males). In addition, approximately one-third of thechildren were firstborn, a third were second born, and the remainder were later born.

Procedure

Data were collected at multiple points from the time that children were 6 months olduntil they were 24 months old. During home visits when children were six months old(Time 1), parents completed questionnaires concerning demographic characteristicsand child temperament. At 15 and 18 months (Time 2), for mothers and fathers,respectively, parent–child dyads visited the laboratory and were videotaped duringthree interaction sessions: (1) a 15-minute semi-structured parent–child play session;(2) the strange situation; and (3) a 10-minute caregiving session (i.e., parent–childsnack). Only data from the 15-minute play session are considered in this report. At 36months (Time 3), children visited the laboratory with their mother, during which theywere assessed using the Reynell developmental language scales (RDLS; Reynell,1990) and were observed in a forbidden toy self-control procedure.

Demographic Data

During interviews with the fathers and mothers at Time 1, information was gathered onmarital status, number of fathers’ and mothers’ biological children, number of childrenliving at home, parents’ ages, race/ethnicity, years of education, employment status(not working vs. working), income, fathers’ residency, and children’s age and gender.Parents were asked to identify their total years of education on a numeric scale from 1to 20, with numbers less that 12 representing less than a complete high schooleducation, 12 representing the completion of high school, 13–15 representing thecompletion of some college work, 16 representing the completion of a college degree,18 representing completion of a master’s degree, and 20 representing the completionof a terminal degree.

ITN Ratio

Mother’s report of total family income was divided by a needs formula established bythe US Bureau of the Census, which represents the amount of income needed for afamily of a particular size to meet basic living requirements. An ITN ratio of 1.0represents the ‘poverty line’. Mean ITN ratios for subjects in the present study were2.77 at the time of the six-month interviews. The sample consisted primarily ofmiddle-income families, with only eight families living below the poverty line.

Parent–Child Interaction. During the laboratory visit at Time 2, mother–child andfather–child pairs were escorted to a room furnished with three cloth sacks, numberedfrom 1 to 3, containing separate toys: (1) a Clifford the Big Red Dog book; (2) aFisher-Price play kitchen consisting of an integrated oven, range top, and toaster withdoors and geometrically shaped blocks; and (3) A Fisher-Price house with a garage,chimney, and doors that included a small vehicle, a dog doll and a male doll that fit intothe vehicle and the house in several places. The parent was told that his or her child had15 minutes to play with the toys, and that the child could spend as much time as he orshe liked with each toy, but the parent was asked to play with each toy beginning withthe sack labeled number one and ending with the sack labeled number three. After 15



minutes the researcher entered the room and ended the session. Videotapes weresubsequently coded for a variety of parent and child interaction behaviors using twocoding systems specifically designed for this study, that were not part of the largerNICHD investigation.

Measures. The variables considered in this study include: (1) family income (Time 1);(2) parent education (Time 1); (3) child communicative competence assessed at 36months (Time 3); and (4) child self-control assessed at 36 months (Time 3). Inaddition, at Time 2, which occurred at 15 months for mother–child dyads and at 18months for father-child dyads, five variables were derived from the coding of theparent–child interaction session: (1) parent–child dyadic reciprocity; (2) parent–childshared positive emotion; (3) parent–child shared negative emotion; (4) parent–childmutual initiation; and (6) parent–child mutual compliance.

Videotape Coding

The parent–child play sessions were videotaped, and these videotapes were codedusing two rating scales. These scales assess bidirectional dimensions of parent andchild interaction style, synchrony, and emotion. Parent–child interaction was rated at30-second intervals based on the digital time readouts displayed on the videotapes inhours, minutes, and seconds. Intervals of 30 seconds were selected as the coding unitbased on previous work suggesting that this time frame was most optimal in allowingcoders to reliably assess parent–child interaction at a microanalytic level (Lindsey,Mize, & Pettit, 1997).

Parent–child dyadic reciprocity, scale number one, dyadically rates the extent towhich parent and child are engaged in mutually focused, reciprocal, and responsivebehavioral exchanges on a five-point scale (Mize & Pettit, 1997). When parent and childshare the same focus of attention, maintain the same topic, mirror the partner’s emotion,and are responsive to the partner’s cues, a high rating is assigned. When parent and childdo not share the common focus, frequently change topics abruptly, or when one or bothpartners ignore or are unresponsive or non-contingently responsive for many interactionsequences, they receive a low rating. For each mother–child and father–child dyad, rat-ings were averaged across intervals to establish a parent–child dyadic reciprocity score.

Parent–child emotion was coded for both parent and child on two five-point scalesin each 30-second interval of interaction. For positive emotion, the presence andintensity of positive emotion was rated, where 1 indicated no positive emotion and 5indicated intense and sustained positive emotion. Smiles, chuckles, and/or laughterwere behaviors that indicated positive emotion. Negative emotion was identified by thepresence of anger, sadness, and sarcasm. Presence and intensity of negative emotionwas rated 1 to indicate no negative emotion and 5 to indicate intense sustained negativeemotion. Positive and negative emotions were coded using separate scales, making itpossible for the display of both positive and negative emotions in the same interval.That is, mother or child could receive a score of 2 or higher on the positive emotionscale, as well as a score of 2 or higher on the negative emotion scale, in any given30-second interval if they displayed both positive and negative emotions during thatinterval. Two different coders rated each dyad, one for parent behavior and one for childbehavior. In addition, different coders were assigned to code mother–child and father–child interaction within the same family. This allowed for a more objective coding ofmothers, fathers, and children in a particular family.



To identify each partner’s expression of positive and negative emotions withininteractions, ratings were dichotomized. A score of 1 was assigned for each 30-secondinterval in which positive emotion was rated as 2 or higher whereas intervals assigneda score of 1 for positive emotion were converted to a score of 0. Similarly, ratings ofnegative emotion were also dichotomized. From the transformed scores, a positiveemotion variable and a negative emotion variable were created by calculating thenumber of intervals in which positive or negative emotion was present out of the totalnumber of intervals in the caregiving session. Arcsine transformation was performedon these proportion scores prior to use in analyses.

To examine the pattern of emotional expressiveness between parent and child, twodyadic emotional expressiveness variables were also created for all mother–child andfather–child dyads: a shared positive emotion score and a shared negative emotionscore. These were created by identifying the proportion of intervals in which bothparent and child expressed a positive or a negative emotion out of the total number ofintervals in which positive or negative emotion was displayed by either dyad partner.

Reliability for the rating measures of parent–child synchrony was determined byhaving a second coder independently code 24 percent (N = 20) of randomly selectedvideotapes for both mother–child and father–child dyads. Inter-rater reliability (kappa)was .82 for mother–child dyadic reciprocity, .87 for mother–child shared positiveemotion, and .72 for mother–child shared negative emotion. Inter-rater reliability(kappa) was .84 for father–child dyadic reciprocity, .85 for father–child shared positiveemotion, and .74 for father–child shared negative emotion. The reliability for parent–child shared negative emotion was low because the occurrence of a negative emotionwas rare; thus, most intervals were coded as a 1 resulting in unbalanced cell distribu-tions. The rare and subtle nature of negative emotions also resulted in more disagree-ments between coders (81 and 84 percent agreement for mother–child and father–childshared negative emotion, respectively).

Event-based Initiation and Response Coding. Videotapes of the parent–child playsessions were also coded using an event-based coding scheme for the occurrence ofinitiations, and responses to initiations, for both parent and child. The particular codingscheme used in this study was a modified version of one used previously by Lindsey andMize (2000a) designed to assess communication events within play interactions thatrepresent influence attempts and responses to influence attempts between parent andchild. Lindsey and Mize (2000a) discuss the validity for their coding system based on theuse of event-based codes in communication patterns (Black & Logan, 1995; Mize &Ladd, 1990) and control strategies (Kochanska, 1997; Kochanska & Kuczynski, 1991).

The scheme was modified somewhat, due to the age of the children observed for thisstudy, to include non-verbal communication behaviors. Specifically, the average age ofchildren in this sample when observations of parent–child interaction were conducted(Time 2) was 15.67 months for mother–child dyads and 18.76 months for father–childdyads, a developmental period in which children have limited verbal skills (Heimann,et al., 2006). Furthermore, parents often use non-verbal communication with childrenof this age (Bloom, 1993). Consequently, in order to accurately capture the types ofinitiations and responses that are normative for this age group, non-verbal events wereincluded in the coding scheme, such as gestures, pointing, proximity, vocalizations,and eye gaze.

Videotapes were transcribed by two graduate and four upper-level undergraduatestudents. In order to increase the accuracy of the transcripts, particularly the non-verbal



behaviors, persons transcribing the videotapes were trained using descriptions of thebehavioral codes. Transcripts were then coded by four graduate students who had notparticipated in transcribing and who were unaware of the hypotheses of the study.Coders participated in 20 hours of training to familiarize themselves with the codinginstructions. After the training, coders jointly coded transcripts until they established abaseline reliability of 80 percent agreement. After baseline reliability was established,two different pairs of coders were assigned to code the mother–child and father–childtranscripts. In this way, no person coded the same mother–father pair. The transcriptswere randomly divided between the coders, with 10 percent of the transcripts beingcoded by both coders for reliability purposes. During the coding process, transcriptswere also checked against the videotapes to ensure that the transcriptions were com-plete and accurate.

Parent and Child Initiations and Responses

Coders noted each statement, question or non-verbal behavior intended to initiateinteraction or influence the behavior of the partner. Although initiations were codedinto one of five categories, for the purpose of this study, only the total number ofinitiations was of interest; thus, the different initiation categories are not described indetail. Each initiation was identified as being either a play initiation or a non-playinitiation, depending upon its intent and the action in which it was embedded. Playinitiations were identified as those given with the intent to change or influence apartner’s play behavior and those given while the dyad was involved in some playactivity (e.g., ‘Let’s make dinner’; ‘Should I get the other toy?’ ‘Please hand me theplate’; ‘Don’t move that food’). Non-play initiations were identified as those that werenot related to ongoing play that were given with the intent to influence the partner’sbehavior with regard to something other than toys or play activities (e.g., ‘Will you sitby me?’ ‘Don’t throw’; ‘Get away from the mirror’).

In addition to initiations, coders recorded the responses parent and child made toeach initiation they received. For the purpose of this study, only two specific types ofresponses were of interest: (1) comply, partner follows through with or complies withinitiation (e.g., the parent says, ‘Can you give me that toy?’ the child hands the fatherthe toy; the parent says, ‘Does that go in there?’ the child looks at the object the fatherindicated; the child hands the father the toy, the father takes the toy and starts playingwith it); and (2) comply with turnabout, partner follows through with or complies withlead/directive and at the same time offers an alternative initiation that elaborates uponthe play theme (e.g., parent says ‘Let’s look in the stove’, child opens the door andlooks at the father, then says ‘hot’ to which the parent replies, ‘Oh the stove is hot’).

Following Hazen and Black (1989), an event within a particular interaction sequencemay have been coded twice, once as an initiation and once as a response. For instance,in the sequence the parent says ‘Let’s cook the muffin’, the child puts the muffin in theoven, takes it out, and ‘feeds’ it to the parent, whereupon the parent says ‘Oh thankyou’. The child’s action of putting the muffin in the oven and feeding it to the parentwas coded as a response (comply turnabout) to the initiation ‘Let’s cook the muffin’and as an initiation to the response (comply) ‘Oh, thank you’.

There were very few non-play communication events in the initiation or responsecategory, and many subject dyads showed no exemplars of non-play communicationevents. Consequently, non-play events were excluded when creating summary scores.From the raw frequencies of the event level codes, scores were created representing the



rate of parent and child play initiations. Because the length of time dyads were observedvaried slightly (Ms = 16.17 and 16.25 minutes for father and mother, respectively),frequency of initiations was converted to rate per minute. Specifically, a measure of playinitiation was created for both parent and child by dividing the frequency of playinitiations for that individual (parent or child) by the number of minutes in theobservation session. In addition, a proportion measure of compliance to play initiationswas created by summing comply and comply with turnabout responses for each partnerand dividing the sum by the individual’s (parent’s or child’s) total responses.

Because our interest was in the dyadic nature of parent–child interaction and intapping the bidirectional patterns of interaction, two dyadic measures were createdfrom the individual partner’s initiation and compliance scores. Firstly, a dyadic initia-tion imbalance score was created for parent–child pairs by computing the differencebetween the rate of parent play initiations to child and the rate of child play initiationsto parent. From this score an index of mutual play initiation was computed as 1(absolute value of the dyadic initiation imbalance). Thus, the mutual initiation scorereflects the relative balance of child and parent attempts to influence play. Secondly, adyadic compliance imbalance score was created for parent–child pairs by computingthe difference between the proportion of parent compliance to child play initiations andthe proportion of child compliance to parent play initiations. From this score, an indexof mutual compliance was computed as 1 (absolute value of the dyadic complianceimbalance score). Dyads with more balanced proportions of compliance to initiationshave scores closer to 1 whereas less balanced dyads have scores closer to 0. Mutualcompliance, therefore, reflects the balance of parent-to-child and child-to-parent playinitiation–comply sequences, and as such indexes the degree of mutual responsivenessin parent–child play.

Coder Reliability

Two independent judges coded 10 percent of total father–child and mother–childvideotapes. Reliabilities were computed for (1) identification of a particular event as aninitiation vs. a non-initiation; (2) identification of a particular event as a response vs.a non-response; (3) correct classification of an initiation; and (4) correct classificationof a response. The proportion of agreement between coders for identification ofinitiations was .77 and .79 for mother–child and father–child dyads, respectively. Theproportion of agreement for identification of responses was .82 and .84 for mother–child and father–child, respectively. Considering only those events that both judgesidentified as either an initiation or a response, the kappa for initiations was .82 and .78for mother–child and father–child, respectively, and the kappa for responses was .80and .84 for mother–child and father–child, respectively.

Child Communicative Competence. Children were administered the RDLS (Reynell,1990) within four weeks of their third birthday (Time 3). Designed to test verbalcomprehension and expressive language skills in young children, the RDLS comprisetwo 67-item scales and yield two scores, verbal comprehension and expressive lan-guage. For the verbal comprehension items, children are presented with sets of objects,and the examiner gives the child instructions such as ‘Where’s the spoon?’ or ‘Put allthe white buttons in the cup’. For the expressive language scale, the examiner observesthe structure of the child’s speech (e.g., ‘Child has one or more appropriate uses of pasttense’, ‘Child uses complex sentences’) and asks the child to label objects, describe



objects or activities observed in a picture, and define words. The internal consistencyfor this test is very high, with alphas in excess of .85 for each of the two subscales. Bothexpressive and receptive language scores are related to quality of the family andchildcare environment (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2000). Alphas forthe current sample were .91 for verbal comprehension and .88 for expressive language.

Behavioral Self-regulation Assessment. Children were observed in a multi-episodelaboratory session within four weeks of their third birthday (Time 3). Approximatelymidway thorough the two-hour laboratory session, the visit co-ordinator initiated theforbidden toy task while the mother worked on questionnaires in a corner of the room.The task was designed to measure the child’s ability to resist temptation. The taskbegan with a brief period of play involving the child and the visit co-ordinator with anew and attractive toy, Ski Boat Crocs (TOMY no. 1009). The visit co-ordinator theninitiated a waiting period by telling the child that they could play by themselves duringthis period with toys that they had already played with during an earlier procedure butshould not touch the crocodile toy until told they could do so. The toy was then placedat arm’s length from the child while the visit co-ordinator did paperwork in a corner ofthe room. After 2.5 minutes the visit co-ordinator gave the child permission to playwith the Crocs and played with the child for an additional two minutes.

Videotapes of the child’s behavior during the waiting period were scored fromvideotapes of the procedure at a central location by coders blind to other predictor andoutcome measures. Computer-based coding afforded a running account of eight behav-ior codes in one-second intervals. From this record, behavior durations were calculated.Two mutually exclusive codes were used in the current analysis: (1) active engagementtime, which was scored whenever the child manipulated and played with the forbiddentoy, and (2) minimal engagement time, which was scored whenever the child madesimple momentary touches of the object. The two variables correlated .11 with eachother. Reliability estimates were computed based on the repeated measures formula-tion presented by Winer (1971), yielding estimates of .98 and .83 for active andminimal engagement, respectively.

Plan of Analysis. Firstly we began with a set of descriptive analyses, including anexamination of associations between demographic variables and parent–child interac-tion variables, as well as child adjustment variables. Next we examined mean differ-ences by conducting repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) based on parentand sex of child in order to examine the role of gender in manifestations of parent–child dyadic synchrony. Thirdly, factor analysis was used to address the primaryobjective of the study, which was to examine the structure of parent–child dyadicsynchrony. Finally, both bivariate correlations and regression analyses were used toexamine linkages between parent–child synchrony and children’s adjustment. Specifi-cally, bivariate correlations were computed between the parent–child synchrony andchildren’s adjustment controlling for family demographic variables in order to examinedirect linkages. Subsequently, regression analysis was used to examine the relativecontribution of the five parent–child synchrony variables to children’s adjustment.

Results

Descriptive statistics for the measures are shown in Table 1. For ease of interpretation,all means for parent–child interaction presented in the tables and text are the raw,



Tab

le1.

Des

crip

tive

Stat

isti

csfo

rP

aren

tC

hara

cter

isti

cs,P

aren

tB

ehav

ior,

Chi

ldB

ehav

ior,

and

Par

ent–

Chi

ldD

yadi

cV

aria

bles

Mot

her

(N=

80)

Fath

er(N

=80

)

Mea

nSD

Ran

geM

ean

SDR

ange

Pare

ntch

arac

teri

stic

sA

ge(T

1)27

.71

4.87

18.0

0–39

.00

31.1

05.

2120

.00–

45.0

0E

duca

tion

(T1)

15.0

92.

249.

00–2

1.00

15.1

82.

489.

00–2

1.00

Pare

ntbe

havi

orPo

sitiv

eem

otio

n(T

2).8

6.3

3.0

0–.9

7.8

1.3

7.0

0–.9

4N

egat

ive

emot

ion

(T2)

.05

.12

.00–

.59

.05

.12

.00–

.59

Init

iati

ons

(T2)

51.4

422

.13

7.44

–125

.00

44.2

320

.22

3.20

–107

.00

Com

plia

nce

(T2)

.58

.13

.24–

.88

.63

.11

.37–

.89

Chi

ldbe

havi

orPo

sitiv

eem

otio

n(T

2).5

2.1

6.4

1–.7

2.6

8.1

8.5

2–1.

04N

egat

ive

emot

ion

(T2)

.05

.15

.00–

.45

.07

.17

.00–

.48

Init

iati

ons

(T2)

32.6

08.

32.0

0–61

.00

27.9

06.

87.0

0–55

.00

Com

plia

nce

(T2)

.77

.10

.53–

.96

.75

.09

.53–

.94

Dya

dic

vari

able

sD

yadi

cre

cipr

ocit

y(T

2)2.

62.7

5.8

5–4.

022.

56.7

8.8

7–3.

87S

hare

dpo

sitiv

eem

otio

n(T

2).8

5.5

2-1

.00–

1.00

.82

.48

-1.0

0–1.

00S

hare

dne

gativ

eem

otio

n(T

2).7

5.4

7-.

90–1

.00

.80

.41

-.87

–1.0

0M

utua

lin

itia

tion

(T2)

.82

.21

.34–

1.00

.71

.19

.25–

1.00

Mut

ual

com

plia

nce

(T2)

.49

.26

.08–

.90

.50

.29

.01–

.97

Not

e:T

1=

Tim

e1

at6

mon

ths;

T2

=T

ime

2at

15m

onth

sfo

rm

othe

r–ch

ild

dyad

san

dat

18m

onth

sfo

rfa

ther

–chi

lddy

ads;

T3

=T

ime

3at

36m

onth

s.



untransformed proportions. However, in subsequent analyses, proportion scores aresubject to arcsine transformation (Myers, 1966). To provide some context for theprinciple analyses, we first computed correlations among the parent–child interaction,child communicative competence, child self-control, and demographic variables.Higher levels of father–child shared positive emotion, mother–child mutual initiation,and child communicative competence were associated with greater mother educationand family income. These patterns of relations were highly similar for boys and girls,with one exception: mother education was associated with communicative competencefor girls, r(41) = -.38, p < .01, but not for boys, r(39) = -.09; difference via z testsignificant at p = .05.

To examine possible gender differences in patterns of parent–child interaction,repeated measures ANOVA with child gender as the between-subjects variable andparent as the repeated measure were performed on the individual assessments of parentand child behavior and on the measures of parent–child synchrony. The analysesrevealed that mothers made more initiations to children than fathers (M = 51.44 and44.23, SDs = 22.13 and 20.22, respectively, F (1, 78) = 10.00, p < .05, h2 = .36). Thechild gender ¥ sex of parent interaction was not significant, nor were there significanteffects in the analysis of negative interactions.

All measures of mother–child synchrony were entered into a principal-componentsfactor analysis with varimax rotation. Only one factor emerged that met the criterion ofeigen values exceeding unity and accounted for 44 percent of the variance. The factor(eigen value = 8.33) had high loadings for mother–child dyadic reciprocity, mother–child shared positive emotion, and mother–child mutual initiation. Mother–childshared negative emotion and mother–child mutual compliance did not load signifi-cantly on any factor.

A second principal-components factor analysis with varimax rotation was conductedwith the measures of father–child synchrony. Two factors emerged that met the crite-rion of eigen values exceeding unity and accounted for 41 and 33 percent of thevariance, respectively. Factor one (eigen value = 10.43) had high loadings for father–child dyadic reciprocity, father–child mutual initiation, and father–child mutual com-pliance. Factor two (eigen value = 3.71) had a high loading for father–child sharedpositive emotion. The measure of father–child shared negative emotion did not loadsignificantly on any factor.

Bivariate correlations between the parent–child synchrony variables and the fourchild competence variables (two communicative competence scores and two self-control scores) are listed in Table 2. The pattern of correlations suggests that mother–child and father–child dyadic interactions were connected to children’s communicativecompetence and self-control in similar ways. Specifically, parent–child dyadic reci-procity and parent–child shared positive emotion were linked to higher levels ofexpressive language and lower active engagement, although the correlation betweenmother–child dyadic reciprocity and child active engagement was not statisticallysignificant. In addition, parent–child mutual compliance was linked to lower activeengagement. However, the following differences were observed in the pattern ofcorrelations for mother–child and father–child synchrony: (1) mother–child but notfather–child dyadic reciprocity was significantly positively related to children’s verbalcomprehension and negatively related to minimal engagement; (2) mother–child butnot father–child shared negative emotion was related to children’s active engagement;and (3) father–child but not mother-child mutual compliance was positively related tochildren’s verbal comprehension and negatively related to lower levels of minimal



Tab

le2.

Par

tial

Cor

rela

tion

sam

ong

and

betw

een

Mot

her–

Chi

ldIn

tera

ctio

nV

aria

bles

,Fat

her–

Chi

ldIn

tera

ctio

nV

aria

bles

,Chi

ldC

omm

unic

ativ

eC

ompe

tenc

e,an

dC

hild

Self

-con

trol

,Con

trol

ling

for

Fam

ilyIn

com

e

23

45

67

89

1011

1213

14

Mot

her–

Chi

ld(N

=80

)D

yadi

cre

cipr

ocit

y(T

2).5

0***

.11

.41*

*-.

15.3

2**

.35*

*.0

7.3

3**

.28*

*.2

6**

.27*

*-.

09-.

33**

Sha

red

posi

tive

emot

ion

(T2)

-.28

*-.

14.1

0.2

5**

.23*

-.18

.11

-.01

.16

.19*

-.22

*-.

15S

hare

dne

gativ

eem

otio

n(T

2).1

4.1

1-.

08.2

1*-.

09.0

4.1

6.0

2-.

11.2

4**

.14

Mut

ual

init

iati

on(T

2).2

4*.2

0*-.

14.1

1-.

11.0

8.0

4-.

02.1

0-.

06M

utua

lco

mpl

ianc

e(T

2).0

8.1

1.0

3.0

2.2

1*.1

7-.

10-.

20*

-.16

Fath

er–C

hild

(N=

80)

Dya

dic

reci

proc

ity

(T2)

.55*

**.0

2.3

8**

.35*

*.1

6.3

1**

-.28

**-.

16S

hare

dpo

sitiv

eem

otio

n(T

2)-.

08-.

06-.

01.1

9.2

5**

-.21

*-.

13S

hare

dne

gativ

eem

otio

n(T

2).0

2.1

4.0

7-.

08.0

2.1

1M

utua

lin

itia

tion

(T2)

.28*

*.1

0-.

06.0

4.0

2M

utua

lco

mpl

ianc

e(T

2).3

3**

-.16

-.31

**-.

22*

Com

mun

icat

ive

Com

plia

nce

Ver

bal

Com

plia

nce

(T3)

.43*

*.3

0**

-.04

Exp

ress

ive

(T3)

.33*

*-.

03Se

lf-c

ontr

olA

ctiv

een

gage

men

t(T

3).2

3*M

inim

alen

gage

men

t(T

3)

Not

e:T

1=

Tim

e1

at6

mon

ths;

T2

=T

ime

2at

15m

onth

sfo

rm

othe

r–ch

ild

dyad

san

dat

18m

onth

sfo

rfa

ther

–chi

lddy

ads;

T3

=T

ime

3at

36m

onth

s.*

p<

.05,

**p

<.0

1,**

*p

<.0

01.



engagement. However, z tests revealed that these differences were not statisticallysignificant.

Child Sex Differences

Separate correlations were computed for boys and girls. These correlations are nottabled due to space considerations but are available from the first author. Although theoverall pattern of correlations was similar to what was found for the full sample, therewere three notable divergences in the associations involving dyadic synchrony andmutual compliance: (1) mother–child dyadic reciprocity was associated with higherlevels of verbal comprehension among girls, r(41) = -.21, p < .01, than among boys,r(39) = -.05, NS (difference via z test significant at .05); (2) father–child mutualcompliance was associated with lower minimal engagement among boys, r(41) = .26,p < .01, than among girls, r(39) = .02, NS, (difference via z test significant at .05); and(3) father–child shared positive emotion was associated with lower levels of activeengagement for boys, r(39) = -.21, but not for girls, r(41) = -.06, (difference via z testsignificant at .05).

Regression Analyses. A series of sequential multiple regression analysis were com-puted using child communicative competence and child self-control measures as thedependent variables, and components of parent child synchrony as the independentvariables. In each regression analysis four steps were entered: (1) family income wasentered to control for the influence of demographic characteristics as a factor inpredicting parent–child interaction; (2) parent–child dyadic reciprocity was entered ina single step; (3) parent–child shared positive and shared negative emotions wereentered as a set; and (4) parent–child mutual initiation and mutual compliance wereentered as a set. Variables were entered in this order to account, firstly, for distal familyfactors that might affect the parent–child relationship, and secondly, to examine pos-sibly unique associations between different indicators of parent–child synchrony andchildren’s communicative competence and self-control. In order to reduce the numberof variables used in analyses and because of their similar pattern of association withparent–child synchrony measures, family income, but not parent education, was usedas demographic index in the regression analyses.

The regression results with child communicative competence as the dependentvariables are summarized in Table 3. For mother–child dyads, only dyadic reciprocitymade an independent contribution to children’s verbal comprehension. In addition,mother–child dyadic reciprocity and mother–child shared positive emotion made inde-pendent contributions to children’s expressive vocabulary. For father–child dyads,dyadic reciprocity and mutual compliance made independent contributions to chil-dren’s verbal comprehension. In addition, father–child dyadic reciprocity and father–child shared positive emotion made independent contributions to children’s expressivevocabulary.

The regression results with child self-control as the dependent variable are summa-rized in Table 4. For mother–child dyads, shared positive emotion, shared negativeemotion, and mutual compliance made independent contributions to children’s activeengagement. In addition, mother–child dyadic reciprocity made an independent con-tribution to children’s minimal engagement. For father–child dyads, dyadic synchrony,shared negative emotion, and mutual compliance made independent contributions tochildren’s minimal engagement.



Discussion

A growing body of empirical research demonstrates that dyadic synchrony is animportant quality of parent–child interaction, with implications for children’s adjust-ment outside the family (see Harrist & Waugh, 2002). We sought to contribute to thisliterature by examining more closely the constellation of parent–child interactivebehaviors that may best capture parent–child dyadic synchrony. Specifically, based ona review of existing literature, we chose to examine the inter-relations between fivecomponents of parent–child dyadic synchrony: shared positive emotion, sharednegative emotion, mutual initiation, mutual compliance, and a global measure ofdyadic reciprocity. Contrary to expectations, not all of the components of dyadicsynchrony were inter-correlated. However, a consistent pattern did emerge for both

Table 3. bs from Stepwise Regression Analysis Predicting Children’s Communi-cative Competence from Family Income, Mother–Child Interaction, and Father–Child Interaction

Regression

Communicative competence (T3)

Verbal comprehension Expressive vocabulary

b R2Change

in R2 b R2Change

in R2

Regression 1: Mother–child (N = 80)Step 1: family characteristics (T1) .01 .01 .08 .01

Family income .11 -.02Step 2: dyadic reciprocity (T2) .28** .11 .08** .24** .14 .07**Step 3: shared emotion (T2) .10 .03 .10 .05**

Shared positive emotion -.17 .29*Shared negative emotion .21 -.18

Step 4: initiation/responses (T2) .07 .04 .07 .03Mutual initiation .20 .19Mutual compliance .16 -.18

Regression 2: Father–child (N = 80)Step 1: family characteristics (T1) .02 .02 .03 .01

Family income .16 .12Step 2: dyadic reciprocity (T2) .25* .04 .06* .21* .09 .06*Step 3: shared emotion (T2) .06 .03 .13 .06*

Shared positive emotion -.08 .34*Shared negative emotion .11 -.07

Step 4: initiation/responses (T2) .13 .09* .11 .05Mutual initiation .16 .09Mutual compliance .36** .02

Note: T1 = Time 1 at 6 months; T2 = Time 2 at 15 months for mother–child dyads and at 18months for father–child dyads; T3 = Time 3 at 36 months.* p < .05, ** p < .01.



mothers and fathers in which the global index of dyadic reciprocity and shared positiveemotion showed a significant overlap. Likewise, the global index of dyadic reciprocitywas significantly associated with mutual initiations in both mother–child and father–child dyads. These data are consistent with evidence that shared positive emotionalstates (Feldman, 2003; Feldman & Greenbaum, 1997) and give-and-take in verbalinitiations (Lindsey & Mize, 2000b; Lindsey et al., 1997) are indicative of highlysynchronous parent–child dyads. This may be particularly true for the developmentalperiod of toddlerhood when children rely on emotional cues and signals to communi-cate their intentions to parents and are developing the ability to participate as verbalpartners with their parents (Bloom, 1993). Additional longitudinal research is neededto chart how manifestations of parent–child synchrony may change over the course ofchild and family development.

Table 4. bs from Stepwise Regression Analysis Predicting Children’s Self-control,from Family Income, Mother–Child Interaction, and Father–Child Interaction

Regression

Self-control (T3)

Active engagement Minimal engagement

b R2Change

in R2 b R2Change

in R2

Regression 1: Mother–child (N = 80)Step 1: family characteristics (T1) .01 .01 .05 .02

Family income .11 -.12Step 2: dyadic reciprocity (T2) .11 .04 .02 -.26** .13 .06**Step 3: shared emotion (T2) .10 .08** .10 .03

Shared positive emotion -.27** .09Shared negative emotion .23* -.11

Step 4: initiation/responses (T2) .12 .06* .03 .01Mutual initiation .20 .06Mutual compliance -.36* .10

Regression 2: Father–child (N = 80)Step 1: family characteristics (T1) .02 .02 .03 .01

Family income .08 .12Step 2: dyadic reciprocity (T2) -.27* .09 .06* -.31* .08 .08**Step 3: shared emotion (T2) .12 .08* .10 .02

Shared positive emotion -.30* -.03Shared negative emotion .11 -.09

Step 4: initiation/responses (T2) .15 .08* .13 .09*Mutual initiation .03 .24Mutual compliance -.25* -.32*

Note: T1 = Time 1 at 6 months; T2 = Time 2 at 15 months for mother–child dyads and at 18months for father–child dyads; T3 = Time 3 at 36 months.* p < .05, ** p < .01.



In an effort to further explicate the behavioral components of dyadic synchrony, wealso examined their connection to two child outcomes identified by Harrist and Waugh(2002) as having links to parent–child dyadic synchrony, namely: child communicativecompetence and self-control. The results revealed that the index of dyadic reciprocityand parent–child shared positive emotion were the most consistent predictors of chil-dren’s adjustment. Although the precise nature of these connections varied based onthe particular dimension of adjustment assessed and parent gender, overall it appearsthat children from parent–child dyads characterized by a mutually focused, reciprocal,and responsive pattern of interaction, together with high levels of shared positiveemotion, demonstrate greater communicative competence and self-control. The factthat these findings confirm theoretical arguments of how parent–child dyadic syn-chrony may contribute to children’s adjustment in the specific areas of communicativecompetence and self-control (Harrist & Waugh, 2002) offers further verification thatthese constructs represent key components of parent–child dyadic synchrony duringtoddlerhood. These findings also corroborate those of previous researchers (e.g., Crisset al., 2003; Mize & Pettit, 1997) pointing to the multifaceted nature of parent–childsynchrony. One implication of these findings is for researchers to broaden the assess-ment of synchrony to include multiple facets of parent–child interaction.

It is important to note that although multiple interactive patterns may be indicativeof a synchronous parent–child relationship, it is possible that the unique behavioralconstituents that form parent–child synchrony may have singular connections to chil-dren’s adjustment outcomes. Consistent with this proposal in the present study, wefound that both the global measure of parent–child responsive interaction and sharedpositive emotion made independent contributions to the prediction of children’s com-municative competence and self-control. Moreover, parent–child mutual complianceemerged as another predictor of children’s self-control, even after taking into accountthe global measure of dyadic synchrony and parent–child shared positive emotion. Thisfinding replicates that of Kochanska (1997), who found that high levels of sharedco-operation and shared positive emotion in mother–child dyads predicted children’sself-control one year later. However, Kochanska focused only on mother–child dyadswhereas in the present study the connection between parent–child mutual complianceand child self-control was particularly robust for father–child dyads in that father–childmutual compliance was related to both indices of children’s self-control whereasmother–child mutual compliance was related only to child active engagement with theforbidden toy. Thus, our findings extend existing evidence that mutual co-operationbetween parent and child is important to children’s self-regulation (Feldman et al.,1999; Harrist, Pettit, Dodge, & Bates, 1994) to include father–child relationships. Thefact that mutual compliance was significantly related to the global measure of parent–child synchrony for father–child dyads but not for mother-child dyads suggests thatthere may be differences in the constellation of behaviors that make up dyadic syn-chrony for mothers and fathers, and that such differences translate into variations inhow mother–child and father–child synchrony relates to children’s adjustment. Alter-natively, it may be that the same pattern of behavior has different consequences forchildren’s adjustment depending on the relationship context in which it occurs. Addi-tional research examining how synchrony manifests itself in mother–child and father–child relationships will help to elucidate these issues.

Our findings also provide supporting evidence for models of children’s languageacquisition that emphasize the important role that parent–child emotional expressive-ness plays in children’s developing language skills (Bloom & Tinker, 2001). Processes



of joint attention and emotional transfer have been found to be crucial to children’sdevelopment of language (Feldman & Greenbaum, 1997; Nicely et al., 1999). Consis-tent with this research, we found that shared positive emotion in parent–child dyadscontributed to children’s expressive language competence one year later. Becausechildren come to learn language through conversations, they rely on contextual cues tointerpret the utterances of their conversational partners. Shared positive emotion maymake parent’s utterances more salient to toddlers, who are highly attuned to theircaregiver’s emotional states. Alternatively, shared positive emotion may serve as amotivational factor in prolonging parent–child interaction, so that children in dyadswith high levels of shared positive emotion are exposed to more language than childrenfrom dyads with less shared positive emotion. The precise mechanism by which sharedpositive emotion contributes to children’s language skills remains an important ques-tion to be addressed by future research.

Overall, there were very few differences based on sex of child in the manifestationof dyadic synchrony or in connections between dyadic synchrony and children’sadjustment. This suggests that at least for children in this age group, similar processesare operating for boys and girls. The differences that were found based on child sexshould be considered within the general pattern of similarity, but they are worthmentioning briefly. Firstly, whereas synchrony was associated with higher levels ofmutual compliance for girls, this was not the case for boys. Secondly, shared positiveemotion was associated with lower levels of active engagement for boys but not forgirls. Thirdly, mutual compliance was associated with lower minimal engagement forboys but not girls. These findings may reflect gender differences in the behavioralpatterns of young children. For example, girls have been found to be generally morecompliant (Kochanksa & Aksan, 1995), to express more positive emotions (Cassidy,Parke, Butkovsky, & Broungart, 1992), and to be more self-regulated than boys(Weinberg et al., 1999). As a result, there may be greater behavioral variation amongboys that provide meaningful connections to patterns of parent–child interaction. It isalso possible, as has been suggested by other researchers, that there are closer tiesbetween parent–child relationships and children’s adjustment outside the home forboys compared with girls. That is, boys may be more susceptible to variations in thequality of parent–child interaction than girls are. Given the limited nature of the genderdifferences that were observed in the present study, they should be interpreted withcaution and await replication in future research.

Despite the evidence for the importance of synchrony found in this study, somelimitations must be noted. Firstly, although efforts were made to ensure the inclusionof a diverse sample of families as participants, the families were still relatively homog-enous, particularly with respect to education level and mean level of income. Althoughit is certainly true that families of any socioeconomic background can engage insynchronous behavior, it is also possible that families with fewer demographic stres-sors find themselves within an environment more conducive to these types of interac-tions. Also, synchrony may have different facets or indicators in other populations dueto variations in cultural expressions of interaction. Therefore, additional examinationof these issues with a more diverse sample is needed to increase the generalizability ofthe findings. One of the strengths of the concept of synchrony is that it can be expressedin multiple ways. Therefore, it is not anticipated that a more diverse population wouldyield different patterns of association between synchrony and children’s outcomes.However, it may be the case that additional components of synchrony may be uncov-ered. Secondly, despite the longitudinal nature of our data, we were unable to control



for preexisting differences in children’s adjustment prior to the assessment of parent–child dyadic synchrony due to the absence of equivalent measures of communicativecompetence and self-control at 12 months. Consequently, the direction of effectbetween parent–child dyadic synchrony and children’s adjustment remain open tointerpretation. It is possible that individual differences in children’s early adjustmentcould have played a role in the quality of parent–child synchrony and in turn influencedtheir functioning at Time 3. Additional longitudinal research that includes assessmentsof children’s adjustment and assessments of parent–child synchrony at multiple timeswill assist in shedding light on the issue of the direction effect in connections betweenparent–child synchrony and children’s adjustment. Thirdly, the results of the presentstudy are also limited because of the structured nature and limited duration of theinteraction in which parents and children were observed. The findings should beinterpreted only with reference to the particular assessment contexts in which theywere studied. More comprehensive and naturalistic assessments of family behaviormight have captured other dimensions of parent–child dyadic synchrony or revealeddifferent patterns of associations.

The links found between the multiple components of dyadic synchrony and chil-dren’s adjustment outcomes in this short-term longitudinal study support argumentsmade by Harrist and Waugh (2002) and Kochanska et al. (1995, 1997) that contingentand mutual-response interactions between parent and child set the stage for optimalpatterns of development. At the same time, given the associations that were foundamong the various components of dyadic synchrony, our findings argue for a multidi-mensional view of parent–child dyadic synchrony during early childhood. The findingssuggest that dyadic synchrony is a dynamic process whereby both partners contributeto their ongoing interaction. Consequently, it represents an emergent quality of theparent–child relationship rather than a particular characteristic or style attributable toone partner. As such, it may provide more accurate information about relationshipfunctioning than do characteristics of one or both participants. Thus, the present studyjoins a growing body of research to suggest that a view of both parent and childcocreating their relationship together may be more accurate and useful than a unidi-rectional perspective of parents influencing their children’s behavior. Although sup-ported by empirical evidence, the components of dyadic synchrony examined in thisstudy may not represent the most ideal constellation of indices. Additional researchthat explores alternative synchrony constructs will help to provide clarity to thebehavioral indicators of dyadic synchrony.

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