Atypical maternal behavior toward feeding-disordered infants before and after intervention

The display of atypical behaviors and disrupted communication during parent -infant interactions, as assessed by the Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrum ent for Assessment and Classification (AMBIANCE), has been linked to disorg anized infant attachment, which, in turn, has been linked to psychopatholog y. The present study examined the usefulness of the AMBIANCE as an indicato r of the efficacy of two brief interventions in reducing atypical behaviors and disrupted communication during play interactions. Twenty-eight mother- infant dyads participated (14 per intervention). All infants had feeding pr oblems. One intervention. Interaction Guidance, focused on training caregiv ers to respond sensitively to their infants (play-focused intervention). Th e other intervention focused on training mothers to use new feeding techniq ues (feeding-focused intervention). Results showed a significant decrease i n AMBIANCE scores in the play-focused group from pre- to postintervention. but not in the feeding-focused group. There was a significant decrease in t he level of disrupted communication from pre- to postintervention sessions in the play-focused group but not in the feeding-focused group. 73% of moth ers from the play-focused group and 17% of mothers from the feeding-focused group initially classified as "disrupted" attained a classification of "no ndisrupted" at the postintervention session. Some limitations of the study include small sample size, differences in timing of assessment for each int ervention, and use of samples of convenience. Nonetheless, these findings p rovide preliminary evidence both of the usefulness of AMBIANCE as an instru ment for assessing clinical efficacy and the efficacy of Interaction Guidan ce.