Changes in patterns of Early Mother-Child Interaction: A longitudinal study of the first 18 months of life

OBJECTIVE

The main objective of the present longitudinal study is to describe the progression of early adult-child interactions between the first and second years of life. Changes identified in interactions are described, focusing on both the qualitative aspects of maternal responses, as well as maternal response latency to the child's behavior using a microanalytical methodology that collected data on maternal and child behavior in real-time without losing sight of the temporal dimension.

PARTICIPANTS

This study examined 52 mother-child dyads from intact families that presented no psychological, social, or biological risk factors at 6, 12 and 18 months of age.

INSTRUMENT

CITMI-R (early mother-child interaction coding system, revised edition) was used to assess early mother-infant interactions during free play sessions between mother and child the.

RESULTS

The results indicate that some components of maternal sensitivity improve as children progress towards the second year of life, detecting an increase in sensitive maternal behavior and a decrease in intrusive behavior in the evolutive observed period; moreover, regarding latency of maternal response, we observed that mothers of older children give more time for their children to explore, which stimulates autonomy. Finally, the implication of these results for intervention directed to optimizing early adult-child interactions are addressed.

Validity of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form in a sample of Spanish fathers

The purpose of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form in a sample of 115 fathers of infants aged between ten and thirty-nine months old. The exploratory factor analysis revealed three reasonably distinct factors, as in the original version of the instrument. The three extracted factors: Parental Distress, Parent-Child Dysfunctional Interaction and Difficult Child accounted for 47.48 % of the variance. The internal consistency coefficients were high in each factor or subscale. These results provided empirical evidence in favour of the reliability and validity of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form in Spanish fathers, and can be useful to elucidate the mechanisms through which stress impacts parenting and permitting to develop more targeted interventions for infants and their families.

[Factor structure and internal consistency of the Spanish version of the Parenting Stress Index-Short Form]

The aim of this study was to analyze the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of Parenting Stress Index-Short Form. After translating the instrument from English into Spanish using the forward-backward translation method, it was administered to a sample of 129 mothers of children aged between 10 and 39 months olds. The exploratory factor analysis identified two factors: Childrearing Stress and Personal Distress, which accounted for 48.77% of the variance. The internal consistency of these factors was high (Childrearing Stress: .90 and Personal Distress: .87). Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.