The Effects of Maternal Mirroring on the Development of Infant Social Expressiveness: The Case of Infant Cleft Lip.

ABSTRACT: Parent-infant social interactions start early in development, with infants showing active communicative expressions by just two months. A key question is how this social capacity develops. Maternal mirroring of infant expressions is considered an important, intuitive, parenting response, but evidence is sparse in the first two months concerning the conditions under which mirroring occurs and its developmental sequelae, including in clinical samples where the infant's social expressiveness may be affected. We investigated these questions by comparing the development of mother-infant interactions between a sample where the infant had cleft lip and a normal, unaffected, comparison sample. We videotaped dyads in their homes five times from one to ten weeks and used a microanalytic coding schem

SUBMITTER: Murray L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6311812 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature