Abstract Despite the neurological vulnerability of premature newborns, there is evidence that they are able to process temporal aspects of the maternal voice, as a previous study observed more overlapping vocalizations during maternal humming versus speech. However, there is a lack of knowledge about the markers of the infants’ overlapping vocalizations. Our aim was to identify the location of overlapping vocal...
Background: Controversy exists regarding the role played by parent-children relationships for children’s behavioral and psychosocial development. Crucial for some authors, others consider parenting styles as part of a more complex system. Less adaptive parenting styles are generally associated with childrenwhohave lower involvement at school and may contribute for psychopathology emergence. Objectives: To inves...
The purpose of this article is to present the adaptation and factorial validation of the Placental Paradigm Questionnaire (PPQ) for the Portuguese population. Method: The original PPQ was translated into Portuguese (designated as ‘Questionário do Paradigma Placentário’, QPP) and then back-translated into English; the Portuguese and the back-translated versions were evaluated by a panel of experts. The participa...
Home literacy environment explains between 12 and 18.5% of the variance of children’s language skills. Although most authors agree that children whose parents encourage them to read tend to develop better and earlier reading skills, some authors consider that the impact of family environment in reading skills is overvalued. Probably, other variables of parent–child relationship, like parenting styles, might be ...
Introdução: Algumas variáveis psicológicas da mulher parecem estar em estreita relação com a evolução clínica da gravidez e o resultado do parto. No entanto, acerca dos fatores de risco para o parto pré-termo, é necessário aprofundar conhecimentos na área do risco psicológico que permitam uma prevenção mais eficaz. Objetivos: relacionar o resultado do parto, no que se refere à idade gestacional, tipo de parto e...
This paper describes the construction and validation of the Scale of Sound-Music Representations in Pregnancy (SSMRP). This scale was used with a sample of 211 pregnant women at the second and at the third trimesters of gestation, before the morphologic ultrasound examination by the 22nd week of gestation and previously to the ultrasound examination at the 32nd week of gestation. The SSMRP aims to assess the le...
Investigation about the psychological experiences of the reproductive life cycle showed that in critical moments special reactions may happen. These reactions seem to be defensive in nature, are set in motion in order to promote some kind of emotional protection and are performed in two opposite directions: a) a decreasing of the contact with aggressive impulses and b) an increasing of the use of rationalizatio...
Some psychological variables of women seem to be in close relationship with the clinical course of pregnancy and delivery outcome. However, about risk factors for preterm birth, it is necessary to deepen the knowledge of the psychological risk area to enable more effective prevention. Aim: To relate the result of delivery, with regard to gestational age, mode of delivery and infant characteristics with psycholo...
A presente investigação tem como objectivo esclarecer a influência dos maus-tratos e da negligência, ocorridos durante a infância, sobre as representações da vinculação em crianças de idade pré-escolar (3 a 6 anos). Com este trabalho, pretende-se também contribuir para o esclarecimento da influência do género da criança sobre a adopção de estratégias não seguras de vinculação e determinar a importância, na mini...
Defence mechanisms (DM) were investigated in infertile couples (n = 60) waiting for their first infertility consultation, making use of the Defense Mechanisms Inventory (DMI). When compared with results of fertile couples (n = 60), infertile men and women showed a significant trend to avoid the use of defence mechanisms that enable the expression of aggressive impulses as well as a tendency to overuse defence m...