David Oppenheim
Biographic Data
| ID | 212401 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Oppenheim |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Oppenheim |
| SIGNATURE | OPPENHEIM D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Haifa |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7019-2106 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 147 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The social skills of autistic boys in preschool
BACKGROUND: The interactions of typically developing (TD) children within the family context are associated with their social skills in preschool, and the question guiding this study, which focused on boys, was whether the same would be true for autistic children. A specific focus was on the importance of the boys' engagement in triadic, mother-father-child interactions over and above their engagement in dyadic, parent-child interactions. The boy…
An invited commentary on mentoring in infant mental health
This paper is based on a symposium on mentoring in infant mental health that took place at the 18th World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) conference. The symposium commemorated Robert N. Emde who was one of the founders of the field of Infant Mental Health, and devoted much of his career to mentorship. From an IMH perspective, mentoring experiences are best thought of as relationships, significant for both mentor and mentee, with pos…
Coparenting Representations and Interactions Among Parents of Preschoolers with an Autism Spectrum Disorder
Parental insightfulness is associated with mother–father–child interactions among families of preschoolers with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis
BACKGROUND: Parental insightfulness underlies parental sensitive behavior and is associated with secure attachment among Typically Developing (TD) children and also among children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Moving beyond the parent-child dyad, a study of TD children and their parents linked mothers' and fathers' combined insightfulness to triadic interactions. The goal of the current study was to examine this association in families wit…
Disrupted maternal communication and disorganized attachment in the Arab society in Israel
Disrupted maternal communication during mother‐infant interaction has been found to be associated with infants’ disorganized attachment, but has been studied primarily in North American and European samples and not in Arab samples. To address this gap the study examined the association between disrupted maternal communication and infant attachment in a sample of 50 Arab mothers and their one‐year‐old infants in Israel. Attachment was assessed wit…
Disrupted affective communication characterizes mothers of infants with disorganized but also ambivalent attachments
This study examined whether maternal disrupted communication, which is associated with disorganized infant attachment, also characterizes mothers of ambivalent infants. The study, conducted in Israel, included a Jewish sample (N = 163; 68 Girls) from diverse socioeconomic status, collected between 1991 and 1993 in an earlier study. The sample over-represented ambivalent and disorganized attachments. Attachment was assessed in the Strange Situatio…
Challenges of Mothering in Extended Families
Historical and cross-cultural records show that childrearing is generally situated within a community of significant others, particularly kin. These others not only shape children’s behavior, but also shape that of mothers. The purpose of this paper is to explore this phenomenon from the point of view of Palestinian mothers in Israel. This is an instructive case study because the Arab society in Israel is undergoing fundamental changes, many of w…
The contribution of mother‐father‐child interactions to children's emotion narratives
Parents' sensitivity during interactions with their children has been associated with children's emotion narratives elicited using story completion tasks, but almost all of this research focused on mothers and was based on a dyadic, parent‐child focus. The goal of the present study was to expand this research by studying triadic, mother‐father‐child interactions and their associations with children's narratives. Seventy‐one families with their 4.…
Dialogues about Emotional Events between Mothers with Anxiety, Depression, Anorexia Nervosa, and No Diagnosis and Their Children
SYNOPSISObjective. Mothers with psychiatric diagnoses have been found to be generally less responsive and sensitive when interacting with their children, but studies of the quality of their dialogues with their children have not been conducted. Such dialogues are associated with children’s coherent representations of their experiences, which promote resilience and coping. Design. The present study focused on mothers with a diagnosis of anxiety (n…
Emotional Availability in Mother-Child Interaction
SYNOPSIS Objective. The goals of the study were to provide descriptive information regarding the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to examine the contribution of child functioning and diagnosis and maternal parenting stress and psychological distress to EA Scale scores. Design. 45 preschool-age boys with an ASD and their mothers were assessed using the EA Scales. Three play episodes were observed: free play,…
Maternal insightfulness and preschoolers' emotion and behavior problems
Mothers' insightfulness, which involves understanding the motives underlying the child's behavior in a complete, open, and accepting way, was examined both at the beginning and at the end of a therapeutic preschool program for preschoolers using the Insightfulness Assessment (Oppenheim & Koren‐Karie, 2002). The goal of the study was to examine the links between improvement in mothers' insightfulness and reduction in children's behavior problems. …
The added value of attachment theory and research for clinical work
Mothers who were severely abused during childhood and their children talk about emotions
The article focuses on detailed examination of the co‐construction of emotion dialogues between mothers and their 6‐year‐old children in light of mothers' experiences of being sexually, physically, and emotionally abused during childhood. We present examples from dialogues between 3 mothers and their children about emotional events experienced by the children and illustrate emotionally mismatched co‐construction processes. To better understand th…
Mothers' insightfulness regarding their children's internal worlds
This article introduces a new method to assess mothers' insightfulness regarding their children's inner world. Maternal insightfulness involves the capacity to see things from the child's point of view, and is based on insight into the child's motives, a complex view of the child, and openness to new information about the child. Insightfulness is seen as the capacity underlying positive parenting and providing the context for secure child–parent …
Mother's insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience
This study examined the associations among mothers' insightfulness into their infants' internal experience, mothers' sensitivity to their infants' signals, and infants' security of attachment to their mothers. The insightfulness of 129 mothers of 12-month-old infants was assessed by showing mothers 3 videotaped segments of observations of their infants and themselves and interviewing them regarding their infants' and their own thoughts and feelin…
Mothers' insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience
The Associations among Observed Maternal Behavior, Children's Narrative Representations of Mothers, and Children's Behavior Problems
The associations among mothers' observed behavior toward child, children's internal representations of the mother (IRMs), and children's behavior problems were examined. Eighty-two preschool children ranging in age from 38 to 55 months (M = 49.2) from a low socioeconomic status, their mothers, and their preschool teachers participated in the study. Mothers' observed behavior, and children's IRMs as revealed in their narratives, made a significant…
Two Philosophies, Two Caregiving Experiences
Commentaries| February 26 1999 Two Philosophies, Two Caregiving Experiences Subject Area: Psychiatry and Psychology , Women's and Children's Health David Oppenheim David Oppenheim Center for the Study of Child Development, University of Haifa, Israel Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Human Development (1999) 42 (1): 45–49. https://doi.org/10.1159/000022608 Article history Published Online: February 26 1999 …
Associations between mother-child interaction and children's later self and mother feature knowledge
Associations between mother–child interaction at 12 months and children's feature knowledge of self and mother at 20 months were investigated in 81 dyads. Mother–Child interaction was assessed by scales adapted from the Parent Child Early Relational Assessment (1985). Self- and mother knowledge were assessed by Self- and Mother Feature Knowledge Scales. Associations were found between mother–child interaction and later self- and mother feature kn…
Associations between mother–child interaction and children's later self and mother feature knowledge
Associations between mother–child interaction at 12 months and children's feature knowledge of self and mother at 20 months were investigated in 81 dyads. Mother–Child interaction was assessed by scales adapted from the Parent Child Early Relational Assessment (1985). Self- and mother knowledge were assessed by Self- and Mother Feature Knowledge Scales. Associations were found between mother–child interaction and later self- and mother feature kn…
Perspectives on infant mental health from israel
Collective sleeping of infants and young children on the Israeli kibbutz, which involved separations between young children and their parents at bedtime as well as unavailability of parents during the night, has been in practice for many decades until the recent past. Collective sleeping departed markedly from sleeping arrangements common in most cultures and violated well-accepted child-rearing norms. This article reviews research that points to…
Emotion regulation in mother-child narrative co-construction
The associations were studied between early mother-child co-construction of a separation-reunion narrative and children's concurrent and later (a) emotion narratives and (b) behavior problems. Fifty-one children and their mothers were observed during a co-construction task when the children were age 4 1/2. At ages 4 1/2 and 5 1/2, children's narratives were elicited using the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery (MSSB), and mothers completed the Child Be…
Emotion regulation in mother–child narrative co-construction
Couples' Co-Construction of the Story of Their Child's Birth
Recent research showing links between family narratives and emotional adaptation has raised questions regarding the significance of the coherence of marital narratives for couple adaptation, the important distinction between the narratives couples co-construct and the dyadic process during the co-construction, and the roles of individual psychological functioning and marital functioning in co-constructed narratives. In order to address these ques…
Cultural variation in infants' sleeping arrangements
This study examines the decisions of middle-class U.S. and Highland Mayan parents regarding sleeping arrangements during their child's first 2 years and their explanations for their differing practices. All 14 Mayan children slept in their mothers' beds into toddlerhood. None of the 18 U.S. infants slept in bed with their mothers on a regular basis as newborns, although 15 slept near their mothers until age 3 to 6 months, when most were moved to …
Cultural variation in infants' sleeping arrangements
This study examines the decisions of middle-class U.S. and Highland Mayan parents regarding sleeping arrangements during their child's first 2 years and their explanations for their differing practices. All 14 Mayan children slept in their mothers' beds into toddlerhood. None of the 18 U.S. infants slept in bed with their mothers on a regular basis as newborns, although 15 slept near their mothers until age 3 to 6 months, when most were moved to …
Mothers' insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience
Mothers' insightfulness regarding their children's internal worlds
This article introduces a new method to assess mothers' insightfulness regarding their children's inner world. Maternal insightfulness involves the capacity to see things from the child's point of view, and is based on insight into the child's motives, a complex view of the child, and openness to new information about the child. Insightfulness is seen as the capacity underlying positive parenting and providing the context for secure child–parent …
Emotion regulation in mother–child narrative co-construction
Infant-adult attachments on the kibbutz and their relation to socioemotional development 4 years later
Mother's insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience
This study examined the associations among mothers' insightfulness into their infants' internal experience, mothers' sensitivity to their infants' signals, and infants' security of attachment to their mothers. The insightfulness of 129 mothers of 12-month-old infants was assessed by showing mothers 3 videotaped segments of observations of their infants and themselves and interviewing them regarding their infants' and their own thoughts and feelin…
Emotion regulation in mother-child narrative co-construction
The associations were studied between early mother-child co-construction of a separation-reunion narrative and children's concurrent and later (a) emotion narratives and (b) behavior problems. Fifty-one children and their mothers were observed during a co-construction task when the children were age 4 1/2. At ages 4 1/2 and 5 1/2, children's narratives were elicited using the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery (MSSB), and mothers completed the Child Be…
Maternal insightfulness and preschoolers' emotion and behavior problems
Mothers' insightfulness, which involves understanding the motives underlying the child's behavior in a complete, open, and accepting way, was examined both at the beginning and at the end of a therapeutic preschool program for preschoolers using the Insightfulness Assessment (Oppenheim & Koren‐Karie, 2002). The goal of the study was to examine the links between improvement in mothers' insightfulness and reduction in children's behavior problems. …
Mothers who were severely abused during childhood and their children talk about emotions
The article focuses on detailed examination of the co‐construction of emotion dialogues between mothers and their 6‐year‐old children in light of mothers' experiences of being sexually, physically, and emotionally abused during childhood. We present examples from dialogues between 3 mothers and their children about emotional events experienced by the children and illustrate emotionally mismatched co‐construction processes. To better understand th…
Emotional Availability in Mother-Child Interaction
SYNOPSIS Objective. The goals of the study were to provide descriptive information regarding the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to examine the contribution of child functioning and diagnosis and maternal parenting stress and psychological distress to EA Scale scores. Design. 45 preschool-age boys with an ASD and their mothers were assessed using the EA Scales. Three play episodes were observed: free play,…
The Associations among Observed Maternal Behavior, Children's Narrative Representations of Mothers, and Children's Behavior Problems
The associations among mothers' observed behavior toward child, children's internal representations of the mother (IRMs), and children's behavior problems were examined. Eighty-two preschool children ranging in age from 38 to 55 months (M = 49.2) from a low socioeconomic status, their mothers, and their preschool teachers participated in the study. Mothers' observed behavior, and children's IRMs as revealed in their narratives, made a significant…
Infant^adult attachments on the kibbutz and their relation to socioemotional development 4 years later
Infant-adult attachments on the kibbutz and their relation to socioemotional development 4 years later
Cultural variation in infants' sleeping arrangements
This study examines the decisions of middle-class U.S. and Highland Mayan parents regarding sleeping arrangements during their child's first 2 years and their explanations for their differing practices. All 14 Mayan children slept in their mothers' beds into toddlerhood. None of the 18 U.S. infants slept in bed with their mothers on a regular basis as newborns, although 15 slept near their mothers until age 3 to 6 months, when most were moved to …
Couples' Co-Construction of the Story of Their Child's Birth
Recent research showing links between family narratives and emotional adaptation has raised questions regarding the significance of the coherence of marital narratives for couple adaptation, the important distinction between the narratives couples co-construct and the dyadic process during the co-construction, and the roles of individual psychological functioning and marital functioning in co-constructed narratives. In order to address these ques…
Emotion regulation in mother-child narrative co-construction
The associations were studied between early mother-child co-construction of a separation-reunion narrative and children's concurrent and later (a) emotion narratives and (b) behavior problems. Fifty-one children and their mothers were observed during a co-construction task when the children were age 4 1/2. At ages 4 1/2 and 5 1/2, children's narratives were elicited using the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery (MSSB), and mothers completed the Child Be…
Emotion regulation in mother–child narrative co-construction
Perspectives on infant mental health from israel
Collective sleeping of infants and young children on the Israeli kibbutz, which involved separations between young children and their parents at bedtime as well as unavailability of parents during the night, has been in practice for many decades until the recent past. Collective sleeping departed markedly from sleeping arrangements common in most cultures and violated well-accepted child-rearing norms. This article reviews research that points to…
Two Philosophies, Two Caregiving Experiences
Commentaries| February 26 1999 Two Philosophies, Two Caregiving Experiences Subject Area: Psychiatry and Psychology , Women's and Children's Health David Oppenheim David Oppenheim Center for the Study of Child Development, University of Haifa, Israel Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Human Development (1999) 42 (1): 45–49. https://doi.org/10.1159/000022608 Article history Published Online: February 26 1999 …
Associations between mother-child interaction and children's later self and mother feature knowledge
Associations between mother–child interaction at 12 months and children's feature knowledge of self and mother at 20 months were investigated in 81 dyads. Mother–Child interaction was assessed by scales adapted from the Parent Child Early Relational Assessment (1985). Self- and mother knowledge were assessed by Self- and Mother Feature Knowledge Scales. Associations were found between mother–child interaction and later self- and mother feature kn…
Associations between mother–child interaction and children's later self and mother feature knowledge
Associations between mother–child interaction at 12 months and children's feature knowledge of self and mother at 20 months were investigated in 81 dyads. Mother–Child interaction was assessed by scales adapted from the Parent Child Early Relational Assessment (1985). Self- and mother knowledge were assessed by Self- and Mother Feature Knowledge Scales. Associations were found between mother–child interaction and later self- and mother feature kn…
The Associations among Observed Maternal Behavior, Children's Narrative Representations of Mothers, and Children's Behavior Problems
The associations among mothers' observed behavior toward child, children's internal representations of the mother (IRMs), and children's behavior problems were examined. Eighty-two preschool children ranging in age from 38 to 55 months (M = 49.2) from a low socioeconomic status, their mothers, and their preschool teachers participated in the study. Mothers' observed behavior, and children's IRMs as revealed in their narratives, made a significant…
Mothers' insightfulness regarding their children's internal worlds
This article introduces a new method to assess mothers' insightfulness regarding their children's inner world. Maternal insightfulness involves the capacity to see things from the child's point of view, and is based on insight into the child's motives, a complex view of the child, and openness to new information about the child. Insightfulness is seen as the capacity underlying positive parenting and providing the context for secure child–parent …
Mother's insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience
This study examined the associations among mothers' insightfulness into their infants' internal experience, mothers' sensitivity to their infants' signals, and infants' security of attachment to their mothers. The insightfulness of 129 mothers of 12-month-old infants was assessed by showing mothers 3 videotaped segments of observations of their infants and themselves and interviewing them regarding their infants' and their own thoughts and feelin…
Mothers' insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience
Maternal insightfulness and preschoolers' emotion and behavior problems
Mothers' insightfulness, which involves understanding the motives underlying the child's behavior in a complete, open, and accepting way, was examined both at the beginning and at the end of a therapeutic preschool program for preschoolers using the Insightfulness Assessment (Oppenheim & Koren‐Karie, 2002). The goal of the study was to examine the links between improvement in mothers' insightfulness and reduction in children's behavior problems. …
The added value of attachment theory and research for clinical work
Mothers who were severely abused during childhood and their children talk about emotions
The article focuses on detailed examination of the co‐construction of emotion dialogues between mothers and their 6‐year‐old children in light of mothers' experiences of being sexually, physically, and emotionally abused during childhood. We present examples from dialogues between 3 mothers and their children about emotional events experienced by the children and illustrate emotionally mismatched co‐construction processes. To better understand th…
Emotional Availability in Mother-Child Interaction
SYNOPSIS Objective. The goals of the study were to provide descriptive information regarding the Emotional Availability (EA) Scales in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and to examine the contribution of child functioning and diagnosis and maternal parenting stress and psychological distress to EA Scale scores. Design. 45 preschool-age boys with an ASD and their mothers were assessed using the EA Scales. Three play episodes were observed: free play,…
Dialogues about Emotional Events between Mothers with Anxiety, Depression, Anorexia Nervosa, and No Diagnosis and Their Children
SYNOPSISObjective. Mothers with psychiatric diagnoses have been found to be generally less responsive and sensitive when interacting with their children, but studies of the quality of their dialogues with their children have not been conducted. Such dialogues are associated with children’s coherent representations of their experiences, which promote resilience and coping. Design. The present study focused on mothers with a diagnosis of anxiety (n…
Disrupted affective communication characterizes mothers of infants with disorganized but also ambivalent attachments
This study examined whether maternal disrupted communication, which is associated with disorganized infant attachment, also characterizes mothers of ambivalent infants. The study, conducted in Israel, included a Jewish sample (N = 163; 68 Girls) from diverse socioeconomic status, collected between 1991 and 1993 in an earlier study. The sample over-represented ambivalent and disorganized attachments. Attachment was assessed in the Strange Situatio…
Challenges of Mothering in Extended Families
Historical and cross-cultural records show that childrearing is generally situated within a community of significant others, particularly kin. These others not only shape children’s behavior, but also shape that of mothers. The purpose of this paper is to explore this phenomenon from the point of view of Palestinian mothers in Israel. This is an instructive case study because the Arab society in Israel is undergoing fundamental changes, many of w…
The contribution of mother‐father‐child interactions to children's emotion narratives
Parents' sensitivity during interactions with their children has been associated with children's emotion narratives elicited using story completion tasks, but almost all of this research focused on mothers and was based on a dyadic, parent‐child focus. The goal of the present study was to expand this research by studying triadic, mother‐father‐child interactions and their associations with children's narratives. Seventy‐one families with their 4.…
Parental insightfulness is associated with mother–father–child interactions among families of preschoolers with an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis
BACKGROUND: Parental insightfulness underlies parental sensitive behavior and is associated with secure attachment among Typically Developing (TD) children and also among children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Moving beyond the parent-child dyad, a study of TD children and their parents linked mothers' and fathers' combined insightfulness to triadic interactions. The goal of the current study was to examine this association in families wit…
Disrupted maternal communication and disorganized attachment in the Arab society in Israel
Disrupted maternal communication during mother‐infant interaction has been found to be associated with infants’ disorganized attachment, but has been studied primarily in North American and European samples and not in Arab samples. To address this gap the study examined the association between disrupted maternal communication and infant attachment in a sample of 50 Arab mothers and their one‐year‐old infants in Israel. Attachment was assessed wit…
An invited commentary on mentoring in infant mental health
This paper is based on a symposium on mentoring in infant mental health that took place at the 18th World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) conference. The symposium commemorated Robert N. Emde who was one of the founders of the field of Infant Mental Health, and devoted much of his career to mentorship. From an IMH perspective, mentoring experiences are best thought of as relationships, significant for both mentor and mentee, with pos…
Psychology (26 works) · Developmental psychology (24 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (18 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (17 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Family and Disability Support Research (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (7 works) · Narrative (7 works) · Autism Spectrum Disorder Research (4 works)