Is parents’ Sensory Processing Sensitivity relevant to understand their parenting? Observational studies with mothers of young children

Becoming a parent includes exposure to intense sensory and emotional stimuli. Hence it is reasonable that the individual trait of Sensory Processing Sensitivity, capturing individual differences in the capacity of Environmental Sensitivity to stimuli, holds important implications for parenting. Available evidence suggests that SPS regarding parenting is mainly a risk factor but is limited for the majority to self-report. Across two independent observational studies we investigated the role of SPS in parenting during the first year of a child life. Study 1 (N = 41 mothers of children followed from 3 to 9 months of age) showed that SPS is not necessarily a risk factor. It correlated with slightly higher levels of intrusive behaviors, but limited to the infant’s 3 months of age. No other SPS – parenting associations were identified for the other investigated parenting behaviors. Importantly, higher levels of SPS were associated with an improvement over time, being positively related at 9 months of the child’s age with less intrusive behaviors. In Study 2 (N = 55 mothers of children aged 3 months old) findings again showed that for higher levels of SPS parenting was not for worse, rather SPS became a potential risk factor only in the co-presence of Adverse Childhood Events. Importantly, it also made parents more positively receptive to their own physiological regulatory competences, as captured by Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia at rest, during parent-child interactions. Implications for parenting programs and new direction of studies are discussed.