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Esther M. Leerkes

My primary research focus centers around parent-child relations in infancy and early childhood. Within this area, I have pursued three primary themes: 1) identifying factors that contribute to sensitive maternal behavior, particularly in response to negative child emotions; 2) examining links between maternal sensitivity and subsequent child outcomes; 3) examining the impact of parenting a child with unique temperamental characteristics on adult development, well-being, and relationships during the transition to parenthood. A secondary research interest of mine involves methodological issues in the measurement of infant temperament, emotion regulation, and maternal sensitivity.

There are 6 included publications by Esther M. Leerkes :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Differential Effects of Maternal Sensitivity to Infant Distress and Nondistress on Social-Emotional Functioning 2009 114 Associations between maternal sensitivity to infant distress and nondistress and infant social-emotional adjustment were examined in a subset of dyads from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care (N = 376). Mothers reported on infant temperament at 1 and...
Links between Mothers’ and Fathers’ Perceptions of Infant Temperament and Coparenting 2010 61 This study examined the contributions of infant temperament, marital functioning, and the division of parenting on the quality of the coparenting relationship for couples parenting 6-month-old infants. Marital functioning was assessed prenatally. Whe...
Moderate Vagal Withdrawal in 3.5-Year-Old Children is Associated with Optimal Performance on Executive Function Tasks 2010 110 Vagal tone (measured via respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) and vagal withdrawal (measured by decreases in RSA) have been identified as physiological measures of self-regulation, but little is known how they may relate to the regulation of cognitive ...
Origins of Mothers’ and Fathers’ Beliefs about Infant Crying 2010 64 Origins of mothers’ and fathers’ beliefs about infant crying were examined in 87 couples. Parents completed measures of emotion minimization in the family of origin, depressive symptoms, empathy, trait anger, and coping styles prenatally. At 6 months...
Predictors of Maternal Sensitivity to Infant Distress 2010 43 Objective- The present study was designed to examine the extent to which mothers’ emotional (i.e., empathy, negative emotions) and cognitive (i.e., accurate detection of distress, goals about infant crying, and emotion efficacy) responses to infant d...
The Reliability and Validity of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised 2008 74 The reliability and validity of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised was examined in a sample of 6-month-old infants and their parents. One hundred and fifteen mothers and 79 fathers completed the IBQ-R and a measure of depression and 98 infants...