Lecture: Parent-Child Biobehavioral Coregulation and Child Maltreatment

Erika Lunkenheimer, Ph.D.Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Colorado State UniversityJanuary 27, 2015, 1:00 p.m.127 Moore Building

Sponsored by the Department of Psychology 

Abstract: Child maltreatment is heterogeneous in etiology, course, and outcome. This heterogeneity has created challenges for researchers and practitioners alike. However, despite this heterogeneity, instances of parent-perpetrated maltreatment are not typically isolated or random. Rather, they emerge from ongoing, recurring interaction patterns in the parent-child relationship. Cases of child maltreatment are also unified in being dyadic in nature, and involving failures of parent self-regulation. In this talk, an integrative process model of child maltreatment will be presented, illustrating how a focus on parent-child biobehavioral coregulation can allow for the identification of integrative markers of child maltreatment risk and malleable relationship processes for family intervention. Multiple dimensions of parent-child biobehavioral coregulation, examined via time series analytic methods, will be highlighted as important covariates of child maltreatment and related risk factors. Current and future work on the role of parent-child biobehavioral coregulation in the prevention of child maltreatment will also be discussed.