No abstract

This is a study of the pre- and postnatal antecedents of select indices of 6 to 24 months mother-child and child social-emotional development. The following hypotheses guided the study: 1. That a mother who is secure before the birth of her child will be more involved in the work of the home-visiting intervention, and will by child age 24 months be more responsive to the needs of her child, encourage the autonomy of her child, and use verbal and positive forms of control. In this relationship context, the 2 year-olds would expect to be cared for, show more autonomy, and respond positively to the mother's control. 2. That in a regression mode of analysis, the following five antecedents will be additional predictors of the 2 year outcome: (a) the 1-month mother responsiveness and the infant irritability, (b) the 6 month mother's partner and family support, and (c) the mother's involvement in the work of the intervention in the 7-to 12-months period. Repeated measures analysis of variance and stepwise regression analysis showed that the mother's prebirth secure/autonomous state was associated with the outcome in the 6- to 24-month period and her involvement in the work of the intervention, and that the latter was consistently a significant antecedent of the 24-month outcome. The implications of outcome being anticipated by both family characteristics and the mother's involvement in the intervention are discussed.

In this prospective study of divorce in the first 4 years of life we have shown that previous marital patterns anticipate the occurrence of divorce and influence the response to that event. Most of the divorces occurred in marriages that were consistently low in satisfaction or decreased in satisfaction from birth on. The family response to the event differed. The continuing effort at conflict resolution and the fact that differing levels of adjustment are reached at different time points are suggested by these reactions. For couples with an unsatisfactory marriage from late pregnancy through the first 2 years (consistently low), the immediate and sustained impact of divorce was to enhance the parent's responsiveness to the needs of their infant and the infant's expectation of being cared for. This was not true for couples decreasing from high to lower satisfaction in their adaptation. However, by child age 4, when all families had been divorced for 1 year, divorce versus no divorce was associated with a differential positive effect on teacher Q‐sort ratings of the children for both marital patterns. Children who were from families where the parents were in conflict but did not divorce were more likely to externalize control, were more often uncontrolled, and were more anti‐ as opposed to prosocial. The implication of these findings are discussed. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health