Early channels of mother-infant communication: preterm and term infants.

The impact of prematurity on the responsiveness of mothers and their 4-month-old infants was examined across three channels of communication: attentional, vocal and affective. Log-linear models were used to determine how the behavior of one partner was conditional upon the behavior of the other during home observations of 24 preterm and 24 term infants and their mothers. Visual attention was elicited by vocalization, and the onset of infant gaze was marked by a maternal smile. Mothers and infants responded to vocalizations with vocalizations, and mothers responded to smiles with smiles. Mothers of preterm infants were particularly responsive to their infants' signals within the attentional, vocal and affective channels. Preterm infants demonstrated correspondingly heightened responsiveness within the vocal and affective channels.