Maternal Response to Child May Predict Later Psychiatric Disorders

THURSDAY, July 9, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Timely maternal response to a child predicts later psychiatric disorders in childhood, with associations limited to hyperactivity and conduct disorders, according to a study published online July 1 in PLOS ONE.

Bethany Stanley, from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom, and colleagues examined the relationship between timely vocal response during parent-child interactions and later psychiatric diagnosis in a case-control study drawing on data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children cohort. Infant-mother video observations of children assessed for neuropsychiatric disorders at 7 years of age were used (55 cases and 103 controls).

The researchers found that 1 second represented the optimal threshold for maternal responses and 8 seconds was the optimal threshold for child responses in empirical examination. Only the maternal measure predicted later psychiatric disorders; evidence of associations was limited to hyperactivity and conduct disorders. The associations were not sensitive to maternal education or child sex.

“This latest paper in a series from our group looking at very early predictors of psychiatric problems in childhood suggests a robust association between slow parental responses to their infants” signals and later problems,” coauthor Philip Wilson, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. “We don”t know yet whether the slow responses cause the problems, or whether there are other factors, such as genetic risk, which might explain our findings.”

Abstract/Full Text