Abstract

MUNOZ LEDO RABAGO, Patricia et al. Mother-child interactions and early motor development prediction using structural equation: Application of the model in children with perinatal risk of neurological damage. Interdisciplinaria [online]. 2013, vol.30, n.1, pp.119-138. ISSN 1668-7027.

The most important impact of early expressions of neurological damage in children is the difficulty of mixing up in their social environment which at the beginning affects their interactions with their mother. Children with biological risks show great difficulties to begin interactions. When mothers get adjusted to bidirectional relations with neurologically damaged children, an increase in the commencement of interactions by a child is achieved, while fewer responses of the mother to child produce fewer interactions and increases irritability. Early intervention programs which contain in their strategies management of mother-infant interactions have been considered effective for child development. However, further empirical studies are required, concerning the influence of specific patterns of early mother-infant interaction and future development of children with perinatal neurological damage, in terms of prevention of alterations or disability. The present longitudinal study reports the effect of reciprocity of mother-infant interactions in the motor development observed in children of 4, 8, and 12 months old, latent growth curve in structural equation modeling. This model permits the identifications of causal factors that could affect the results in different age groups and provides predictions of the relations in a more complex form than lineal relations. Based on the model designed, it could be shown that mother-infant interactions of reciprocity best characterized children with higher development level while the absence is seen in children with retarded development. We classified mothers and children in two types, respectively: interactive and organized mothers vs. non-interactive and disorganized ones; interactive and responsive children vs. non-interactive and non-responsive ones. Subjecting these two types of mothers and children to four possible combinations, the model results showed different motor development predictions in the children. On one hand, we estimated regression coefficient of four dyadic systems, obtained by combinations of different types of mothers and children: interactive and organized mother with interactive and responsive child (Dyadic system 1); interactive and organized mother with non-interactive and non-responsive child (Dyadic system 2); non-interactive and disorganized mother with interactive and responsive child (Dyadic system 3); and non-interactive and disorganized mother with non-interactive and non-responsive child (Dyadic system 4). Dyadic system 1 was associated with a better motor development in children with a mayor regression coefficient (19.82), followed by System 2 and System 3 (regression coefficient of 17.54 and 11.46, respectively). System 4 had a negative estimate value of regression coefficient (-11.27) in our model. On the other hand, we estimated intercept values according to the interactive type of these mothers and children. Among the four interactive types, solely two of them had statistically significant intercepts (p < .05), = 66.13 for interactive children and = 42.76, for non-interactive children. To predict the motor development of 4, 8, and 12 months old children, the slope with attenuation permitted to give a mayor model fitting, with the regression coefficient of 0, 1 and 1.5, respectively. This model presented excellent values of model fitting indicators (X² = .96, p = .97, CFI = 1.00, RMSEA = .00). This line of study should be widened, because motor development is the principal domain consolidated in the first months of life. It is fundamental in domain organizations of higher complexity as cognition and language. We conclude that this model showed that in high risk perinatal children, early mother-child interactions represent a good predictor of motor development in the first year of life. Moreover, we found that motor achievements in the first months of life can be a strong predictive indicator of future development of a child. These findings suggest the importance in clinical practice of observation and registration of mother-child interactions as part of an integral strategy of child evaluation.

Keywords : Mother-infant interaction; Dyadic system; Perinatal neurological damage; Motor development prediction; Prevention disability; Latent growth curve modeling.

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