Am J Psychiatry 1978; 135:1371-1374
Copyright © 1978 by American Psychiatric Association
Blind ratings of mother-infant interaction in home movies of prepsychotic and normal infants
HN Massie
Home movies of infants later diagnosed as having early childhood psychoses
were compared with movies of normal control infants. A scale of attachment
indicators measured mother-infant dyadic avoidance and reciprocity in the
first 6 months of the infant's life. Three judges blind to diagnosis saw a
general trend to dampened interaction for prepsychotic infants and their
mothers. Prepsychotic and normal infants were not significantly different
in touching and eye gaze behaviors, whereas mothers of prepsychotic infants
exhibited less adequate eye gaze and touching than mothers of normal
infants.
