Association Between Mother-Infant Attunement During Interaction and the Quality of General Movements

The proposed research has the potential of contributing to the limited empirical literature on the relationship between maternal sensitivity and motor development of preterm infants. If indeed maternal attuned behaviors will be found to be associated with the quality of motor development, such a finding will support the effectiveness of physical therapy in guiding caregivers to attune their holding and touch of preterm infants.

We hypothesize that mothers and infants' attunement during observed interaction will be related to the quality of preterm infants' spontaneous movements in the following ways: First, better maternal attunement to the infants needs, and in particular attunement of holding and touch will be associated with better quality of spontaneous movements of the infants. Second, more initiations and/or involvement of infants in interaction will be associated with better maternal attunement to the infant. Third, more initiations and/or involvement of infants in interaction will be associated with better quality of spontaneous movements and better achievements in developmental milestone. All hypotheses will be examined while controlling for maternal use of SSC method during hospitalization after birth and family demographic backgrounds.