To separate effects of maternal depression on infant cognitive versus language development, 1-year-olds were assessed using the revised Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development (BSID-III). Percentile scores on the Bayley Expressive Communication (EC) subscale were significantly negatively correlated with maternal self-report scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II). However, mothers’ BDI-II scores did not correlate with infant percentile scores on the general cognitive (COG) or receptive communication (RC) subscales. Boys had significantly lower percentile scores than girls on the RC and EC scales, but did not differ on the Cog scale. Gender and maternal depression did not significantly interact on any of the scales. These findings suggest problems with expressive communication precede, and may at least partially account for, apparent deficits in general cognitive development.

The effectiveness of infant-directed speech (IDS) produced by non-depressed mothers for promoting the acquisition of voice-face associations was investigated in 1-year-old children of depressed mothers in a conditioned-attention paradigm. Prior research suggested that infants of mothers with comparatively longer-duration depressive episodes exhibit poorer learning in response to non-depressed mothers’ IDS, but duration of depression was confounded with infant age. In the current study, 1-year-old infants of currently depressed mothers with relatively longer-duration depressive episodes (i.e., perinatal onset) showed significantly poorer learning than 1-year-olds of currently depressed mothers with relatively shorter duration depressive episodes (non-perinatal onset). This was true despite the fact that there were no measurable differences in the severity of depression, level of social functioning, or antidepressant medication use between the two groups. These findings add support to the hypothesis that there is an experience-based change in responsiveness to female IDS in infants of depressed mothers during the first year of life.

Prior research showed that 5-to 13-month-old infants of chronically depressed mothers did not learn to associate a segment of infant-directed speech produced by their own mothers or an unfamiliar nondepressed mother with a smiling female face, but showed better-than-normal learning when a segment of infant-directed speech produced by an unfamiliar nondepressed father signaled the face. Here, learning in response to an unfamiliar nondepressed father's infant-directed speech was studied as a function both of the mother's depression and marital status, a proxy measure of father involvement. Infants of unmarried mothers on average did not show significant learning in response to the unfamiliar nondepressed father's infant-directed speech. Infants of married mothers showed significant learning in response to male infant-directed speech, and infants of depressed, married mothers showed significantly stronger learning in response to that stimulus than did infants of nondepressed, married mothers. Several ways in which father involvement may positively or negatively affect infant responsiveness to male infant-directed speech are discussed.Clinical depression in the postpartum period is associated with disruptions in caregiver-infant interactions, including deficits in the quality and quantity of caregiver stimulation directed toward infants (Murray & Cooper, Correspondence should be sent to Peter S. Kaplan,