Maternal responsiveness of socially high-risk mothers to the elicitation cues of their 7-month-old infants.
This descriptive study of 19 socially high-risk mother-infant dyads in naturalistic interaction focused on maternal response to infant elicitation cues. Maternal response behavior was coded on a continuum from underresponsive to adequate to overresponsive. Maternal affect was rated separately using selected items from an existing scale. As a whole, the maternal sample was emotionally depressed and largely underresponsive to infant cues. When placed by maternal response into adequate, overresponsive, and underresponsive subgroups, adequate mothers more often responded appropriately to infant cues, were never physically unavailable to their infants, showed no anxiety, and were more positively responsive to their infants' smiles and cries. Adequate mothers scored higher in all affective areas. Maternal depression was associated with both overresponse and underresponse. Angry maternal mood was significantly related to underresponse. Considerable maternal strength lies in this high-risk sample and could be the basis for therapeutic intervention to normalize parenting.
Karl
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Comprehensive Child Health Program, Children's Hospital, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology*; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009769:Object Attachment; D015406:Single Parent / Q000523:psychology*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors