Louise Cossette

• University of Quebec in Montreal

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a worldwide phenomenon that has been linked to deleterious consequences. Adverse life events, such as sexual abuse, can compromise the development of emotional competencies, an important dimension of children's psychosocial development. This study aimed at evaluating emotion recognition competencies in sexually abused an...

The associations between psychosocial adjustment problems of 97 adolescents and emerging adults of lesbian and gay parents and their experiences of homophobic victimization were examined. Their psychosocial problems were also compared to their peers from a large-scale representative survey (n = 6,531). Self-report measures were used. Significant di...

Cette infographie explore à la fois les perceptions des professionnel.les et les stratégies d'intervention possibles, tout en soulignant la nécessité pour les intervenant.es de s'ouvrir et s'intéresser à la diversité des expériences sexuelles de leurs patient.es.

Internationally adopted children face many adoption related challenges, which can complicate their identity development and arouse many questions during adolescence. Nonetheless, a few studies have investigated these questions. This research aims to describe these identity questions and to document the singularity of their expression among 76 inter...

Les enfants adoptés à l’étranger présentent davantage de troubles de comportement que leurs pairs non-adoptés. Afin d’examiner les effets de leurs milieux de vie avant et après l’adoption sur l’adaptation psychologique de 57 adolescentes et 12 adolescents ( M= 15,02 ans), nous avons évalué leur état de santé au moment de l’adoption, le stress paren...

Depressive symptoms, posttraumatic stress disorder, and suicidal ideation are among the most prevalent problems associated with sexual abuse. Based on the Traumagenic dynamic of stigmatization model, the aim of this study was to investigate whether self-blame, shame, and maladaptive coping strategies predicted posttraumatic stress disorder, depress...

Child sexual abuse (CSA) during the preschool period can seriously undermine children’s ability to develop emotional competency. Narrative tasks, such as the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB), are particularly adapted to gain a better understanding of young children’s self-regulation processes. To explore the emotion regulation competencies of se...

The impact of adoptive teenager's relationship to their origins on their mental health differ whether it is the parent or the teenager himself assessing the symptoms. The importance and the meaning attached to child birth culture may differ for adoptive parents and their teenager and be a source of conflict within the family. However, promoting tru...

Résumé Afin d’examiner les liens entre le rapport aux origines et l’adaptation psychologique d’adolescents adoptés à l’étranger et l’effet médiateur de la relation avec leurs parents adoptifs, nous avons utilisé diverses composantes de l’identité et de la relation parent-enfant et des évaluations des symptômes intériorisés et extériorisés provenant...

International adoptees show more behavior problems than their nonadopted peers do during childhood and adolescence. Although conditions of deprivation experienced prior to adoption have been found to have a long-lasting impact on child psychosocial adjustment, the influence of adoptive families tends to increase over age. The aim of this study was...

The present study investigated the contribution of various factors to parental involvement and children’s psychosocial adjustment among adoptive families headed by two gay fathers. More specifically, we examined the associations between fathers’ resources (income and education), number of hours devoted to paid work, gender role, sharing of parentin...

Sexual abuse is associated with a host of negative repercussions in adolescence. Yet the possible mechanisms linking sexual abuse and negative outcomes are understudied. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among self-blame, shame, coping strategies, posttraumatic stress disorder, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation...

Capsule de recherche - Équipe de recherche FRQ-SC – Violence sexuelle et santé (ÉVISSA)

Capsule de recherche - Équipe de recherche FRQ-SC – Violence sexuelle et santé (ÉVISSA)

The aim of the present study was to investigate the evolution of emotion regulation competencies in sexually abused preschoolers. Children's emotion regulation abilities and their emotional lability and negativity were assessed shortly after disclosure of sexual abuse and one year later, and compared to those of non-abused children. A sample of 47...

francaisLes interactions de l'enfant avec ses proches et les pratiques parentales jouent un role crucial dans le developpement de la regulation des emotions. De faibles competences parentales, comme on en observe parfois chez les meres adolescentes, pourraient donc constituer un important facteur de risque. Afin de mieux cerner le developpement de...

Emotion regulation is closely related to mental health in children and adults. Low emotion regulation competencies have been found in school-aged sexually abused girls. The aim of the present study was to investigate emotion regulation competencies in sexually abused preschool girls and boys using a multi-informant approach. Emotion regulation was...

Maltreated children show poor emotion regulation competencies compared to non-maltreated children. Emotion regulation has been found to mediate the association between maltreatment and behavior problems in children. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationships among child sexual abuse (CSA), emotion regulation (ER), and internalize...

Based on a family systems approach, our objective is to understand how postpartum depression (PPD) affects and is affected by family relationships. Specifically, we intend to better understand the relationship between PPD, father's involvement with the child and the marital and co-parental relationship. Fathers' and mothers' depression in the years...

To further investigate the long-term impact of pre-adoption adversity on international adoptees, externalizing and internalizing symptoms were assessed using a self-report measure at school-age in addition to mothers' reports. The sample consisted of 95 adopted children and their mothers. Children's health and developmental status were assessed soo...

Patterns of interactional synchrony were compared in mother-child and father-child dyads during dyadic and triadic interactions. Forty-two dual-earner families from the French province of Québec, Canada, participated in the study with their 32months-old child. Parent–child interactions were coded using a taxonomy including the social partners’ phys...

Pour tenter de mieux cerner le developpement de la reconnaissance des expressions faciales d'emotion, nous avons analyse les expressions faciales que produisent 25 nourrissons en reaction aux expressions faciales de leur mere lors de seances d'interaction face a face. Les bebes sont âges de 1 mois lors de la premiere seance et de 2,5 mois, 6 mois e...

The development of the recognition of facial expressions of emotion: a longitudinal study of infants’ facial responses to their mother’s facial expressions To further investigate the recognition of facial expressions of emotion in infancy, we analyzed infants’ facial responses to their mother’s facial expressions during face-to-face interaction. Tw...

Although maternal contingent responses to their infant's facial expressions of emotions is thought to play an important role in the socialization of emotions, available data are still scarce and often inconsistent. To further investigate how mothers' contingent facial expressions might influence infant emotional development, we undertook to study m...

Most of the previous studies analyzing the effect of gender label on adults' interactive behaviours with infants concluded that gender stereotypes affect adults' behaviours more than the actual behaviours or characteristics of the infants. These stereotypes and their ensuing behaviours would contribute to the differential socialization experiences...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the emergence of the recognition of facial expressions of emotion in early infancy. Infants' visual responses to their mothers' facial expressions were observed during face to face interaction at 1 month, 21/2 months, 6 months, and 9 months of age. From 1 month onwards, infants were found to look long...

Infants’ visual responses to their mothers’ facial expressions during face to face interaction The aim of the present study was to investigate the emergence of the recognition of facial expressions of emotion in early infancy. Infants’ visual responses to their mothers’ facial expressions were observed during face to face interaction at 1 month, 2½...

La theorie de l'attachment a constitué, au cours des dernières décennies, lún des principaux cadres théoriques pour comprendre le développement socio-affectif de lénfant et son adaptation sociale. La recherche sur l'attachment est encore aujourd'hui un champ d'études très prolifique, qui possède une impressionante capacité à se renouveler, à génére...

Toward a systemic analysis of attachment bonds Attachment theory has been the main theoretical framework for understanding the child’s socio-affective development over the last decades. This text presents the basic concepts and premisses of the theory as well as some of the relevant research. We will see that the traditional approach, centered on t...

Investigated the impact of maternal language on infant emotional development during the 1st year. 41 mother-infant dyads participated in 4 episodes of face to face interaction when infants were 1, 2, 6, and 9 mo of age. Analyses of mothers' language indicate that a large proportion of their utterances pertained to infant emotional expressions or st...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of maternal language on infant emotional development during the first year. Forty-one mother-infant dyads participated in four episodes of face to face interaction when infants were 1, 2, 6, and 9 months of age. Analyses of mothers' language indicated that a large proportion of their uttera...

Although maternal contingent responses to their infant's facial expressions of emotions is thought to play an important role in the socialization of emotions, available data are still scarce and often inconsistent. To further investigate how mothers' contingent facial, expressions might influence infant emotional development, we undertook to study...

Investigated the emergence of the cognitive ability to distinguish persons and objects during the first few months of life. Thirty-eight infants took part in 2 experimental sessions, the first conducted at the age of 4 wks, the second at 10 wks. Each session consisted of 6 episodes in which the infant's mother, a stranger and a doll were presented...

Emotional reactions to unfamiliar objects and sensorimotor causality in infants The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between the development of sensorimotor causality and infants' emotional reactions to unfamiliar objects. Twenty-seven infants participated in five experimental sessions between the ages of 6 and 18 months. At ea...

While observational studies of the emotional expressions of women and men have revealed several consistent patterns of gender differences, data pertaining to the emotional expressions of male and female infants are largely inconsistent. Attempting to trace the course of early emotional development in female and male infants, we undertook to compare...

This study explored the increasing abilities of infants to play and comprehend the rules and structures of mother-infant games. A total of 25 infants were videotaped as they played peek-a-boo and ball with their mothers at 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, and 24 months of age. Behaviours related to the mood of the infants and to their game-relevant gestures were...

In the weeks and months that follow the birth of a child, between 10 and 20 per cent of mothers experience serious or moderate symptoms of depression. This state of psychological distress affects the mother-infant interaction, and can modify the child's development in the longer term. Recent studies increasingly link these symptoms to environmental...

Many studies conducted with children have reported a higher activity level in boys. However, very few studies bearing on infant motor activity have found significant sex differences, and no clear pattern of differentiation has emerged from these data. To further investigate the motor activity of boys and girls during early infancy, the durations an...

RÉSUMÉ Au cours des semaines et des mois qui suivent la naissance, de 10 % à 20 % des mères présentent des symptômes dépressifs modérés ou graves. Cet état de détresse psychologique influe sur l'interaction de la mère avec son nourrisson et peut modifier à plus long terme le développement de l'enfant. Les études récentes associent de plus en plus c...

This article examines the common admission that men express their emotions less than do women. Research data shows little difference between the behaviours of boys and girls before adolescence. During adulthood, however, evidence points to men being less expressive than women except in situations involving aggressive behaviour. Men's diminished exp...

The physical environment of 120 girls and boys was compared in order to study the emergence of gender differences in infancy. Three age groups were investigated, 5, 13, and 25 months, with 40 children in each group. The quantity and types of toys, the colors and types of clothing, and the colors and motifs of the children's room were noted on a che...

Résumé Cet article examine la thèse couramment admise selon laquelle les hommes expriment moins leurs émotions que les femmes. Les données de recherche montrent peu de différences à cet effet entre les garçons et les filles avant l'adolescence et la vie adulte où, par ailleurs, les hommes apparaissent moins expressifs que les femmes, sauf pour les...

Investigated the temporal structure of maternal speech addressed to 3-mo-old infants in 2 interactional contexts, one free interaction and at bathtime. A study was conducted with 8 21–29 yr old mothers and their normal infants (4 males, 4 females). Results show a temporal structure consisting of brief utterances with little duration variability in...