Preterm infant interaction with the caregiver in the first year of life and competence at age two.

Caregiver-infant interactions were studied for 50 preterm infants and their primary caregivers. Naturalistic observations in the home were made when the infants were 1, 3, and 8 months of age. The social transactions in the first year were related to competence at age 2, thereby extending a previous report showing a moderate association between caregiver-infant interaction and competence at 9 months. The frequency of early social transactions was predictive of the infant's competence at age 2 on the Gesell Developmental Schedules, a sensorimotor scale, a measure of receptive language, and the Bayley Mental Scale. Early social transactions were as predictive of 2-year competence as were caregiver-child transactions at age 2. The study suggests that social transactions as early as 1 month reflect some quality of the relationship between the caregiver and the infant that is important to the child's later mental performance.