Maternal expressed emotion in early childhood: Stability and predictive utility in a community sample

Expressed Emotion (EE) describes emotional attitudes of family members toward one another, including criticism (critical EE) and emotional overinvolvement (EOI), and has been shown to predict outcome in adult psychiatric disorders. The current study investigated the stability of maternal EE from kindergarten to second grade and the role of maternal EE at kindergarten as a predictor of second grade child functioning in a large community sample of youth, oversampled for risk. First, maternal EE stability over time was examined, including stability of overall maternal EE, critical EE, and EOI, gender as a moderator of maternal EE stability, child functioning as a predictor of maternal EE stability, and maternal EE stability as a predictor of subsequent child functioning. Second, kindergarten maternal EE, critical EE, and EOI were examined as predictors of subsequent child functioning, and gender moderation was explored.;Mother-child dyads (n=199) were evaluated when the children were in kindergarten and in second grade. Maternal EE was assessed using both categorical and dimensional ratings from the Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS); children's internalizing, externalizing, and overall symptoms were evaluated with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL and CBCL-TRF); and children's social competence was measured using Adaptive Social Behavior Ratings (ASBR).;Findings in relation to EE stability were that overall EE, critical EE, and EOI exhibited modest yet significant stability during this developmental period and gender moderated dimensional EE and critical EE stability, suggesting greater instability for the mothers of boys than girls. Further, EE stability predicted second grade CBCL Externalizing scores for boys but not girls. Findings regarding maternal EE as a predictor of child outcome were that kindergarten maternal EE and critical EE (but not EOI) predicted second grade child CBCL Total Problem, Externalizing, Internalizing (at the trend level for critical EE), and ASBR scores and gender moderated some of these relationships. However, after controlling for initial child functioning, maternal EE and critical EE were less strong predictors of child outcome.;This study suggests that earlier maternal emotional attitudes may affect children's symptoms and functioning later in development and that their impact may differ according to the gender of the child.