31 infants at high social risk due to the combined effects of poverty, maternal depression, and caretaking inadequacy were assigned to weekly home-visiting services. At 18 months infant age, the home-visited infants were compared with 2 groups of socioeconomically similar unserved infants on measures of infant development, infant attachment, mother-infant interaction, maternal depression, and maternal social contacts. Home-visited infants of depressed mothers outperformed unserved infants of depressed mothers by an average of 10 points on the Bayley Mental Scale and were twice as likely to be classified as securely attached, with unserved high-risk infants showing a high rate of insecure-disorganized attachments. Duration of services was positively correlated with maternal involvement at 12 months. Results of the study point both to the negative developmental consequences associated with severe social risk conditions and to the buffering effects of developmentally oriented home-visiting services for infants at greatest social risk.

Although some depressed mothers are withdrawn, others are highly engaged and intrusive. There are correspondences between the behavior of depressed mothers and their infants.

Fifty-six 12-month-old infants, including 10 maltreated infants, 18 nonmaltreated high-risk infants, and 28 matched low-income controls, were videotaped in naturalistic settings at home with their mothers for 40 min and were observed 2 weeks later in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Maltreating mothers were rated higher than nonmaltreating mothers on covertly hostile and interfering behaviors toward their infants at home. Maltreated infants were more avoidant of their mothers in the Strange Situation than nonmaltreated infants. Correlations between maternal behaviors at home and infant behaviors in the Strange Situation revealed that mothers whose infants displayed resistant behavior on reunion were rated at home as less verbally communicative and mothers whose infants displayed avoidant behavior on reunion were rated at home as more covertly hostile. Infants showing mixed avoidance and resistance were more likely to have extremely uncommunicative mothere than were infants who showed avoidance alone. Use of the behavioral rating scales for avoidance and resistance produced clearer findings than use of the final attachment classifications. Reasons for the discrepancies between analyses of classifications and analyses of behavior ratings were identified.