Adolescent and older mothers' interaction patterns with their six-month-old infants.
Children of adolescent mothers suffer more physical, intellectual, and emotional difficulties than do other children. In order to gain a better understanding of the differences, the interaction patterns of adolescent mothers and non-adolescent mothers interacting with their young infants were compared. One hundred adolescent mothers and 29 married primiparous non-adolescent mothers were observed interacting with their six-month-old infants during a feeding episode and a play episode. All of the mothers had a high school education or less. During feeding, the adolescent mothers demonstrated less expressiveness, less positive attitude, less delight, less positive regard, fewer vocalizations, and a lower quality of vocalizations than non-adolescent mothers. During play, the adolescent mothers demonstrated less inventiveness, less patience, and less positive attitude than the non-adolescent mothers. These results extend and strengthen what is known about adolescent mothers patterns of interaction with their young infants.
Department of Family Relations and Child Development, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater 74078-0337.
R E
RE
Culp
A M
AM
Culp
J D
JD
Osofsky
H J
HJ
Osofsky
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008423:Maternal Age; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010988:Play and Playthings