MOTHERS ABILITY TO DISCRIMINATE CRY TYPES IN LOW-BIRTH-WEIGHT PREMATURE AND FULL-TERM INFANTS

Mothers' perceptions of infant crying were investigated. Participants were 40 primiparous mothers of full-term newborns, low-birthweight pre mature (LBWP) newborns, 6-month-old full-terms, and 6-month-old LBWP i nfants. Mothers listened to tape-recorded cries of LBWP or full-term i nfants and responded to the following: cause of cry, confidence in the ir response to the cause of cry question, aversiveness of the cry, how upset the infant sounded, how ''sick'' the infant sounded, and whethe r the infant needed to be held. Analysis of responses indicated that L BWP infants' cries were perceived as more aversive and more ''sick sou nding'' than those of full-term infants. Mothers, especially mothers o f infants, were more inaccurate when discriminating the causes of LBWP infants' cries. Several findings indicated that mothers of LBWP infan ts are more apt to withdraw from a premature infant's cry than respond to it. This study suggests early communication problems in the LBWP i nfant-mother dyad and supports previous findings concerning the potent ial for later social interaction difficulties.