Maternal verbal interaction in different situations with infants born prematurely or at term

Abstract

The present study investigates whether maternal verbal behaviour, in terms of the use of declaratives, interrogatives and imperatives, can be accounted for by gestational age of the infant, or the situation in which mother–infant pairs were observed. Thirteen mothers and their premature and term babies were observed twice in three situations, namely playing with, feeding and changing their infants. The first observation took place at a mean gestational age of 40 weeks and the second observation took place approximately 7 weeks later. All mothers used more imperatives during play than during changing or feeding situations. Mothers used more interrogatives during play than during changing or feeding, and they used more declaratives during both changing and playing than during feeding. In contrast, gestational age influenced only the complexity of maternal interrogatives. It is concluded that situational factors are significant and hence that the mother's role has to be judged relative to the context in which mothers and infants are observed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Mother–Infant Feeding Relationship Across the First Year and the Development of Feeding Difficulties in Low‐Risk Premature Infants

“…Possibly, the full expression of the mother's touch repertoire may be constrained during feeding, when the mother's hands are occupied in carrying out the task at hand. Although the mother's global style, in terms of sensitivity or intrusiveness, is stable over time (Belsky, Rovine, & Taylor, 1984), the manifestation of maternal sensitivity in the different modalities is often context-dependent (Holditch-Davis, Miles, & Belyea, 2000; Reissland, Shepherd, & Stephenson, 1999). Our findings suggest that feeding and nonfeeding encounters provide important yet distinct contexts for the expression of maternal behavior, and the inclusion of both settings might afford a more comprehensive assessment of the dyadic relationship.…”

Maternal speech to preterm infants during the first 2 years of life: stability and change

“…Although mother–preterm infant interactive patterns and their effects on later development have been widely studied, few studies have addressed the analysis of their communicative exchanges and, in particular, maternal verbal input. Findings documented that, at least during the first year of life, maternal speech directed to preterm infants was similar to that addressed to full‐term infants, with respect to its structural features (Reissland et al 1999, Salerni et al 2007). On the contrary, studies that focused on temporal and functional aspects of verbal input highlighted that mothers of preterm children produced more directive and controlling utterances than mothers of term children (Brown et al 1986, Menyuk et al 1995).…”

A comparison of characteristics of early communication exchanges in mother-preterm and mother-full-term infant dyads

“…In fact, only few studies have focussed on the characteristics of speech directed to premature infants, and the only findings available concern the directivity and the complexity of the maternal linguistic input. More specifically, Reissland, Shepherd & Stephenson (1999), comparing maternal speech directed to term and preterm babies at birth and at 8 weeks, found that gestational age only influences the complexity of maternal interrogative utterances, as measured through the MLU index (mean length of utterance).…”