Correlation Analyses Between Childhood Behavioral Disturbance and Maternal Alexithymia: An Observational Study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Yu-Chen Lin,1 Wei-Yang Lee2 1Department of Psychiatry, Veteran General Hospital-Taichung, Taichung, 407, Taiwan, Republic of China; 2Department of Psychiatry, Cheng Gung Memorial Hospital, Taoyuan City, 333, Taiwan, Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Wei-Yang Lee, Department of Psychiatry, Cheng Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou, No. 5, Fuxing St., Guishan District, Taoyuan City, 333, Taiwan, Republic of China, Tel +886 988067722, Email wayne2859750@gmail.comPurpose: Caregivers’ responses have an impact on children’s emotional and behavioral development. The inability of caregivers to perceive their own emotions affects their responses to children. This study aims to examine the relationship between a mother’s difficulties in emotional expression and children’s emotional and behavioral disorders.Patient and Methods: A total of 78 cases, aged between 3 and 15 years old, were included in this study. The mothers completed the Taiwan version of the “Toronto Alexithymia Scale” (TAS) and “Children’s Behavior Checklist” (CBCL) questionnaires, which served as research tools. TAS consists of three factors: difficulty in distinguishing emotions (Factor 1, F1), difficulty in expressing feelings (Factor 2, F2), and an externally oriented thinking style (Factor 3, F3). CBCL represents a child’s behavior profile. The Mann–Whitney test and correlation analyses were used for follow-up analysis.Results: Our analysis revealed that F1, F2, F3, and total scores of TAS (TAS-Total) correlate positively with the somatic complaint subscale of CBCL (F1: p = 0.003; F2: p = 0.002; F3: p = 0.034, TAS-Total p=0.002). Additionally, TAS-F1 was positively correlated with the internalizing problems subscale of CBCL (p = 0.020) and the withdrawn (WD) subscale of CBCL (p = 0.044). We also found a significant association between TAS-F1 and WD of CBCL in boys alone (p = 0.022). However, we observed a negative association between TAS-F3 and the social problems subscale of CBCL in boys alone (p = 0.038).Conclusion: Mothers with alexithymic features are more likely to have children who internalize emotions, leading to withdrawal and somatic expression. Boys tend to exhibit withdrawal traits associated with internalization. This study provides initial evidence of a partial correlation between maternal alexithymia and children’s emotional and behavioral disorders, emphasizing the importance of investigating caregivers’ emotional traits for a better understanding of children’s development in the future.Keywords: maternal alexithymia, childhood behavioral disturbance, external and internal problem, children’s behavior checklist, Toronto alexithymia scale
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".