Parental cognitions. An unrotated Principal Com ponent Analysis demonstrated tha

Parental cognitions. An unrotated Principal Com ponent Analysis demonstrated that the use of an overall cognitions score was suitable in the present
sample. One item loaded negatively (‘When my child wakes crying, I always know what he or she wants’), suggesting that it was conceptually inappropriate for use with older children and was removed. Twelve of the remaining 14 items loaded onto the first factor and subsequent testing found no significant differ ences between a reduced scale including these 12 items and one including all 14 items. Overall scores from the final 14-item scale exhibited adequate internal consistency (a ¼ .72) and were normally distributed (M ¼ 20, SD ¼ 8.17, range 1–40).
Bedtime interactions. Approximately 90% of parents indicated that they would not ‘leave [their] child to cry’ and, therefore, this item was removed. Principal Component Analysis with Varimax rotation yielded five conceptually coherent factors with eigenvalues >1, but items loaded differently to those in the original scale. Three of the five factors exhib ited acceptable internal consistency and were retained: Settle by Movement (a ¼ .83; e.g., ‘Walk your child in a pram’), Verbal (a ¼ .73; e.g., ‘Talk softly to your child’) and Active interaction (a ¼ .71; e.g., ‘Settle your child in your bed’). The remaining two factors (two items each) were removed due to low coefficient alphas: Distraction (a ¼ .35; e.g., ‘Offer a toy’) and Passive interaction (a ¼ .35; e.g., ‘Play your child musical tape or CD’). Movement, Verbal, and Active interaction together explained 50% of the scale variance: an improvement on the original scale (39%: Morrell & Cortina-Borja, 2002). The overall score (M ¼ 59.27, SD ¼ 15.35, range 33–103) exhibited adequate internal consistency (a ¼ .69) and corre lated highly with Movement, Verbal, and Active interactions (r ¼ .74, .75, .73, ps < .01, respectively). Potential covariates. Secondary caregivers’ tem perament ratings correlated significantly with pri mary caregivers’ ratings (STST, r ¼ .68, p < .01; STSC, r ¼ .40, p < .01) but demonstrated higher internal consistency (a ¼ .84 vs. .53 for primary caregivers). Teachers’ ratings did not relate to either caregivers’ ratings (primary r ¼ .35, ns, n ¼ 93; secondary r ¼ .38, ns, n ¼ 81). Temperament rat ings, measures of life stress and demographic variables were not related to parent predictor vari ables or child sleep behaviour (all rs < .15, ns), with the exception of NESB (16% of the sample, n ¼ 17). Respondents from a non-English-speaking back ground (NESB) reported more problematic cogni tions, t(107) ¼ 2.29, p ¼ .02, and were more likely to have a child with sleep problems, t(107) ¼ 2.50, p ¼ .01. Therefore, NESB was retained as a covariate. Model testing Correlations between the predictors and child sleep behaviour provide preliminary evidence for the pro posed model (see Table 2). A significant, albeit weak, negative relationship between HardiAttitude and 2007 The Authors Journal compilation 2007 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. Table 2 Correlations among parental predictor variables and child sleep behaviour H C BI M V A Hardiness H – Preschoolers’ sleep behaviour and parental correlates 769 Path analysis Model specification was based on a developmental theory which posits that a child’s capacity for self regulation grows from early parent interactions Sleep-related cognitions Bedtime interaction C ).27** – BI ).04 .45** – which encourage appropriate challenges and opportunities for mastery (Sander, 2000). Therefore, the path model (Figure 2) represents a direct causal link from hardiness to sleep-related cognitions to — Movement M ).09 .39** .74** – — Verbal V .14 .29** .75** .39** – — Active A ).16 .35** .73** .43** .19* – bedtime interactions and, finally, to child sleep behaviour. NESB was included as a covariate with a Child sleep behaviour SB ).05 .39** .58** .40** .30** .60** direct causal link to both cognitions and child sleep behaviour. *p < .05, **p < .01 (two-tailed). sleep-related cognitions confirms that less ‘hardy’ parents experience more problematic sleep-related cognitions. Significant positive correlations between cognitions and bedtime interactions as well as all three bedtime interaction factors indicate that parents who experience more problematic cognitions interact more actively with their children at bedtime. Cognitions also positively correlated with child sleep behaviour, suggesting a direct link may exist between parental sleep-related cognitions and child sleep. Finally, a moderate positive relationship between overall bedtime interactions and child sleep behaviour supports the hypothesis that increased parental interaction at children’s bedtime is linked with child sleep problems. Although all three bedtime interaction factors were associated with child sleep problems, only Active interactions proved significant, F(3, 107) ¼ 40.9, p < .005, explaining 27.3% of the variance in child sleep behaviour when all three interaction factors were placed as predictors in a regression analysis, F(3,107) ¼ 1.85, p > .05 (Movement), F(3,107) ¼ 3.33, p > .05 (Verbal).
To test whether the data fit the proposed model of child sleep behaviour, a path analysis including parental hardiness, sleep-related cognitions, bed time interactions, child sleep behaviour and the covariate NESB was performed using AMOS (Arbuckle, 2003), a structural equation modelling (SEM) program.
Several measures indicated that the proposed model was a reasonable fit to the data. Chi-squared was not significant (x2(3) ¼ 4.38, p ¼ .224), relative chi-squared (1.49), which is less dependent on sample size, fell within the conservative range and the root mean square error of approximation (.06) fell below .08 (Browne & Cudeck, 1992). To avoid the chance of non-random sampling, four cases with missing data were removed from analysis (N ¼ 106).
From Figure 2, it is evident that non-English speaking background (NESB) no longer significantly predicted sleep-related cognitions (b ¼ .12, p ¼ .11) nor child sleep behaviour (b ¼ .13, p ¼ .11) when placed in the model with the other parental predic tors. Nor was an indirect effect found. Retaining NESB did not effect the model fit. The path between hardiness and cognitions was significant but the weakest in the model (b ¼ –.29, p ¼ .02), indicating that hardiness accounted for a small amount of the variance in sleep-related cognitions (R2 ¼ 8%). The effect of sleep-related cognitions on parental bedtime interactions was slightly stronger (b ¼ .45, p ¼ .01) and accounted for 21% of the variance in bedtime interactions, while the path between parental bed time interactions and child sleep behaviour (b ¼ .58, p ¼ .01) was the strongest, accounting for 34% of variation in child sleep behaviour. Although cogni tions and child sleep behaviour significantly corre lated in preliminary analyses (see Table 2), a direct effect was not found in SEM.
Several significant, weak indirect effects were identified with SEM, supporting the proposed model.
e e e
–.29* R2 = .08 R2 = .21
.45** .58**
.12
.13
R2 = .34
Figure 2 SEM model of child sleep behaviour with standardised parameter estimates. Associations amongst parental hardiness, sleep-related cognitions, bedtime interactions and child sleep behaviour. For ease of interpre tation, non-significant pathways are presented as dotted lines. Note: NESB ¼ non-English-speaking background *p < .002, **p < .001 (two-tailed) 2007 The Authors Journal compilation 2007 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health. 770 Nikki Johnson and Catherine McMahon Namely, hardiness was found to have a weak nega tive effect on child sleep behaviour (b ¼ ).08, p ¼ .02), mediated by both sleep-related cognitions and bedtime interactions. Hardiness also had a weak negative effect on bedtime interactions (b ¼ ).13, p ¼ .02), mediated by cognitions, and cognitions had a moderate positive effect on child sleep problems (b ¼ .26, p ¼ .01), mediated by bedtime interactions. These findings suggest that children with more hardy parents experience fewer sleep problems as hardy parents experience fewer problematic sleep related cognitions and engage in less interaction with their children at bedtime. Discussion The prevalence of sleep problems identified in the current study (37%), comparable to those reported in other community samples of preschool-aged children (e.g., Lam et al., 2003; McGreavey et al., 2005; Tikotzky & Sadeh, 2001), confirms the per vasiveness of sleep problems in this age group and highlights the importance of understanding the fac tors that cause and maintain them. The current study proposed and tested a unique model to explain sleep behaviour in preschool-aged children. Specifically, the study demonstrated that parents who scored lower on a measure of hardiness experienced more problematic sleep-related cogni tions associated with doubts about parenting com petence, anger and difficulties with limit-setting. These cognitions predicted more parental interac tions at children’s bedtime and during the night, which, in turn, contributed to child sleep problems. Path analysis demonstrated that the pattern of findings were also consistent with the theoretical basis of the present study. Hardiness is primarily a measure of an individ ual’s ability to turn difficult circumstances into challenges and take control of situations as they arise (Maddi, 2002). The current study is the first to examine this construct in relation to the normal challenges of parenting. Motivation for using the hardiness measure stemmed from its theoretical relevance to the construct of authoritative parenting (Baumrind, 1968). Parental sleep-related cognitions and bedtime interactions Consistent with previous research, the majority of child sleep problems identified in this study were associated with active parental interactions such as ‘Lie with your child’ and ‘Settle your child in your bed’ (e.g., Mandansky & Edelbrock, 1990; Morrell & Steele, 2003). While parental behaviour around bedtime has been the focus of many child sleep studies (e.g., Johnson, 1991; Richman, 1987), parental cognitions regarding their preschool-aged children’s sleep have not previously been examined. In the current study, problematic sleep-related cog nitions explained 21% of the variance in parental bedtime interactions, emphasising the importance of considering parents’ sleep-related cognitions when dealing with early childhood sleep problems. Furthermore, findings relating to parental cogni tions and bedtime interactions are comparable to those found in studies involving mothers and their infants (Morrell, 1999; Morrell & Cortina-Borja, 2002; Sadeh et al., 2007), suggesting that problem atic sleep-related cognitions and interactions around bedtime may continue into the preschool years. The fact that hardiness was related to both sleep-related cognitions and bedtime interactions provides further support for the notion that these factors may be reasonably stable. Direction of effects Due to the cross-sectional design, it is not possible to draw firm conclusions regarding the direction of findings. It is theoretically plausible, for example, that children experiencing sleep problems demand and elicit more parental interaction and, therefore, over time, induce more problematic sleep-related cognitions. However, the null findings relating to child t ASSIGNMENT PURPOSE: The first research writing skill in our course is summarizing a research article. These articles contain so much information and it takes some skill to be able to write a short summary that contains the key points and ideas. That is your goal! Read an article and write a brief summary that includes the research questions, hypotheses, sample, methods and findings. Keep your summary concise! It should be no longer than one page, double-spaced. Double check the rubric before you submit to make sure you have included all the required components. Refer to the paraphrase handout for guidance on making sure your writing is unique and not too similar to the article or source. Be sure to check your TurnItIn similarity report after it becomes available in the dropbox. If there are similarity issues, you may be asked to revise or receive a zero on the assignment. Remember to focus on picking out the main ideas and pieces of the study that I am looking for in your writing. It’s okay if you don’t understand every word and phrase in the article or are not sure about all the statistics in the results section. Just focus on what you need to know for this assignment! Double check your formatting by using the APA examples in the Writing Resources module under Content on D2L.

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