Mother–child dyadic co-regulation in children with intellectual disability: A comparison among dyads with children with chromosome 14 aberrations, Down syndrome and typical development

Background: The present study aimed at investigating mother–child dyadic co-regulation patterns in dyads with children with intellectual disability (ID). Method: 24 children paired for developmental age and vocabulary size (8 with chromosome 14 aberrations, 8 with Down syndrome, and 8 with typical development) and their mothers participated in the study. The Revised-Relational Coding Scheme was employed to assess mother–child dyadic co-regulation. Results: The dyads with children with ID appeared to have significantly fewer episodes of symmetric-patterns (i.e., situations in which mother and child share a mutual focus of attention) than those with typically developing children. In addition, the dyads with children with chromosome 14 aberrations showed the highest proportion of unengaged patterns (i.e., situations in which the partners do not interact with one another). Conclusions: A severe level of ID in combination with autistic traits, as frequently found in chromosome 14 aberrations, could lead to a less optimal mother–child interaction.