The impact of maternal depression of dyadic interactions: Implications for communication and problem solving skills in infancy and early childhood

grantor: University of TorontoThe impact of maternal depression on children's cognitive, social-affective communication and problem solving skills was investigated in a cross-sectional study with 54 children (aged 15, 20, and 25 months) and their mothers. Nine dyads at each age level were designated as either Experimental (mothers with a history of depressive symptoms) or Control (mothers without a history of depressive symptoms). Measures included two structured cognitive tasks that assessed children's mental attentional (working memory) capacity (a semantic complexity comprehension task and an imitation sorting task), a series of structured request elicitation episodes to examine social-affective communication between mothers and children, and unstructured play and feeding sessions to assess spontaneous dyadic interactions. Results revealed that children of depressed mothers exhibited relative deficits in language, problem solving, and social-affective communication, and displayed differential dyadic interactional patterns. These findings highlight the potential consequences of maternal depression and adverse dyadic interactions during infancy and early childhood.M.A