Dyadic parent–infant interaction patterns at 12 months: Exploring dyadic parent–infant gender compositions

Abstract

This study investigates differences in dyadic mother-infant and father-infant interaction patterns at infant age 12 months, and the relation between different parent-infant gender compositions and the dyadic interaction. Data were drawn from a large-scale, population-based Norwegian community sample comprising 671 mother-infant and 337 father-infant interactions. The Early Relational Health Screen (ERHS), a screening method for observing dyadic parent-infant interactions, was used to assess the parent-infant interactions. Scores on the ERHS were employed to investigate dyadic differences in the overall interaction scores, and dyadic interaction on seven sub-dimensions between mother-infant and father-infant pairs. The relation between different parent-infant gender compositions and the dyadic interaction scores was also examined. As expected in a normative sample, most parent-infant interactions received scores in the upper rating levels. Differences between mother-infant and father-infant patterns were generally small, but mother-infant dyads tended to obtain slightly higher scores. The mother-infant dyads received higher scores on the dimensions of engagement and enjoyment, but no other significant differences between the parent-infant pairs were found for the remaining dimensions. We did not find evidence for a moderation effect of child gender. However, parent-daughter dyads received somewhat higher scores than the parent-son dyads.

Background TV and infant‐family interactions: Insights from home observations

“…An interaction was categorized as dyadic when the infant engaged in verbal communication or participated in physical games with a partner that did not involve a third object. Since the data were collected when the infants were mostly preverbal (at 8 and 10 months) and previous research on dyadic interactions has emphasized nonverbal behaviors like bids for attention sharing, affective attunement, imitation, and parent‐child enjoyment in each other (Moore et al., 2013; Provenzi et al., 2018; Sigveland et al., 2022), the present study examined not only verbal communication but also nonverbal interactions interspersed with verbal cues. Examples of dyadic interactions include the mother talking to the infant, the father carrying the infant on his shoulders, the mother stroking the infant's hair, or the grandmother playing peek‐a‐boo with the infant.…”

A Holistic Approach to Early Relational Health: Cultivating Culture, Diversity, and Equity

“…It addresses the dyad as a unit, not the child's or parent's individual contribution. Parent-child interactions are videorecorded and rated on a 3-point scale (2-clearly observed, 1-sometimes observed, 0-not observed) [40]. The sum score is used, reflecting an overall measure of dyadic interactional quality.…”

“…The BHS evolved to become the Early Relational Health Screen (ERHS) [41]. The ERHS was validated during a population-level Norwegian study [40] and two US studies in primary care and home visiting settings [42]. The BHS and ERHS were developed and validated by White Euro-American researchers with relatively homogeneous samples.…”

Mother-child and father-child “serve and return” interactions at 9 months: Associations with children’s language skills at 18 and 24 months

“…At the child level, I controlled for child gender (0 = boy; 1 = girl) because parents may interact differently with their sons versus daughters and boys and girls show differences in language skills (Adani & Cepanec, 2019;Siqveland et al, 2022;Umek et al, 2008). Because children with different temperament may elicit different input from parents and display different language abilities (Conture et al, 2013;Padilla & Ryan, 2019), I also controlled for child temperament, which was measured using maternal report on the EAS Temperament subscale of emotionality (Bus & Plomin, 1984;Buss, 1991).…”