Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Purpose: Mothers often bring their infants to health professionals due to concerns about difficulties in physiological regulation, which are upsetting to the family. Reported excessive crying problems in particular, have been postulated to be associated with relationship disturbances and infant mental health problems, which are the precursors of later behavioral disorders and psychopathology. An area that remains the focus of debate is whether reports of regulatory difficulty in infancy represent real child illness or are reflective of early disturbance in the caregiver-child relationship. The question of where intervention efforts are best focused – either at the child's regulatory difficulty or at reframing the caregiver's negative perceptions of their baby – necessitates a more complete understanding of the transactional processes involved. The current study explored whether negative caregiver perceptions of crying or actual infant crying itself at 7 months-of-age were more important to child behavioral outcomes at 33 months-of-age. We also examined the association of these negative perceptions of infant crying with caregiver relationship representations and ecological risk factors.

Methods: Participants were 240 mother-child dyads from a longitudinal study, which included observations in the home and laboratory at 7, 15, and 33 months-of-age. Cry diaries were completed by the caregivers and they were also asked to report on their perceptions of their infant's crying as problematic or bothersome. The Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI) was also administered to the mothers at 7 months to assess relationship representations, yielding three typologies: balanced, disengaged, and distorted.

Results: Perceptions of infant crying as problematic at 7 months-of-age were more predictive of later behavioral problems than the actual level of crying. Distal risk factors, including measures of maternal depression, life events and social support, were found to be associated with these crying perceptions. There was also evidence for a “goodness-of-fit” moderation-effect involving crying and caregiver representations. Balanced mothers were equally unlikely to be bothered by their infants' crying regardless of whether the infant was in the low- or high-crying half of our sample. However, for both disengaged and distorted mothers, the crying became important, with only the high-crying infants being more likely to be viewed as problematic. Similar interactions were found for caregiving behavior at 33 months-of-age, with maternal behavior moderated by the security of their relationship representations. For burdened mothers with unbalanced relationship representations, caring sensitively for a fussy infant may present a special challenge.

Implications: We find evidence for the importance of parental cognitions to subsequent caregiving behavior and child outcomes. It appears that the level of stress and risk is a significant contributor to the caregiver's emotionally availability. One potential mechanism for the impact of this stress on child-caregiver interaction quality seems to be through its impact on the caregiver's overall representations of relationships which color subsequent perceptions and interpretations of specific child behavior and in so doing influence caregiving behavior. These are important issues for social workers dealing with families who are struggling with the transition to the difficult role of parenthood and highlight potential ports of entry for early intervention.