Interoceptive accuracy in children aged 8 to 13 and their parents : implications for mental health

Abstract

Objective: Interoceptive accuracy, meaning accurately detecting and discriminating internal bodily signals, has been proposed as a factor of high relevance to mental health. Nevertheless, studies focusing on the assessment of interoceptive accuracy in children are scarce. Method: The present study addresses this gap by using questionnaire-based measures of interoceptive accuracy as well as behavioural measures such as a heartbeat counting task and a novel cardiovascular signal detection task. These instruments were used to assess interoceptive accuracy in a sample of children aged 8–13 years (N = 37) and their parents (N = 29), aiming to investigate its connection with dimensions of psychopathology, including internalizing, externalizing, and somatoform symptomatology. Following recent suggestions, standard frequentist analyses were complemented by results from Bayesian approaches. Results: The findings provide evidence for a negative relationship between children’s self-reported interoceptive accuracy and internalizing symptomatology reported by their parents (β = –.527). However, no evidence was found to support relationships between experimentally assessed cardiac interoceptive accuracy and psychopathological symptoms. Conclusion: These results emphasize the importance of adopting more comprehensive measures for assessing interoceptive accuracy in research involving children. The paper addresses limitations arising from the limited sample size and potential type I error.