From behavioral interactions in the first year to verbal interactions at age three: Can depressed mother-baby dyads be distinguished from the others?

We followed a group of depressed mothers and their children from birth to a ge three. During the first year, five interactive sequences where recorded between the two members of each of 22 dyads in a natural semi-standardized situation. A comparison with control dyads shows the difficulties of mutual adjustment necessary when the mother of the baby is depressed. In the seco nd year, the communicative profiles of the babies from the two groups confi rmed the greater passiveness of the children in the clinical group. The chi ldren were seen again at age three in the same interactive situation with t heir mothers. The language productions of the children and their mothers we re analyzed with a specialized computer program and compared with those of the control dyads. It is this comparison of the productions of the mothers and children which distinguishes the two groups the most from each other : the high correlation between the different verbal indices in the control po pulation contrast with the absence of correlation in the clinical dyads, sh owing that the initial difficulties of mutual adjustment can still be felt in ulterior communicative functioning.