To investigate possible influences on and consequences of mothers' speech, specific infant behaviors preceding and following four pragmatic categories of mothers' utterances--responsive utterances, supportive behavioral directives, intrusive behavioral directives, and intrusive attentional directives--were examined longitudinally during dyadic…

The current study examined the influence of maternal characteristics on the development of infant smiling and laughter, a marker of early positive emotionality (PE) and how maternal characteristics and the development of infant PE contributed to subsequent maternal parenting. One hundred fifty-nine mothers with 4-month-old infants participated.…

Objective: No previous longitudinal study has examined the impact of comorbid maternal personality disorder (PD) and depression on child development. We set out to examine whether maternal PD and depression assessed at 2 months post partum would be independently associated with adverse developmental outcomes at 18 months of age. Method: Women were…

Although there is growing consensus that parental stress is a risk factor in child development, longitudinal studies of its effects are few. This study tested a sample of 231 mother-child dyads in terms of whether the relations between the global experience of stress in mothers (perceived stress scale) and child temperamental characteristics…

Portions of this paper were presented at the 1967 meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, New York.

The present investigation examined the ability of the Inventory of Home Stimulation (STIM) to predict changes in relative mental test performance of children between 6 months old and 36 months of age. The six STIM subscales were used in discriminant analysis to classify infants into three groups (gainers, stable, losers) in terms of their change…

A pilot study (using the case study, or field research format) examined the acquisition of behaviors in infants who are read to and with on a consistent basis from their first day of life through the first year. Three parent/infant teams participated in a year-long course which consisted of reading "familiar" books to the infants,…

The New Orleans Parent Child Development Center Intervention Model hypothesizes a series of effects: the Child Development and Family Life Educators impart curricula designed to change mother's attitudes and behavior toward her child in ways which should encourage the development of competence in the child. The two single most important types of…