The development of a measure of maternal cognitive sensitivity appropriate for use in primary care health settings.

BackgroundParental responsivity is important to children's cognitive and socioemotional development, yet is under-represented in primary healthcare, because the measurement is specialized and time-consuming. MethodsThe current study developed a measure of maternal cognitive sensitivity (CS), which uses impressionistic ratings based on brief observations of parent-child interaction when children are 3years old. ResultsUsing data from a longitudinal cohort (Time 1, N=501), the CS measure had good psychometric properties, was significantly related to a gold-standard maternal responsivity measure, and was predicted by the same socio-demographic factors predictive of other measures of parental responsivity. Finally, a well-established pathway from socioeconomic risk (child age 2months) to compromised parenting (child age 3years) to negative child outcome (child age 4.5years) was demonstrated with CS as the mediator. ConclusionThe maternal CS measure is brief, can be easily trained, and takes 8min to administer and code, making it potentially useful in primary healthcare settings.