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Fathers' interactions with their high‐risk infants
Author(s) -
Field Tiffany
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
infant mental health journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1097-0355
pISSN - 0163-9641
DOI - 10.1002/1097-0355(198124)2:4<249::aid-imhj2280020407>3.0.co;2-i
Subject(s) - developmental psychology , psychology , medicine
Fathers' face‐to‐face interactions with their 4‐month‐old high‐risk infants were compared to mothers' interactions with the same infants and to those interactions of fathers and mothers of normal infants. The high‐risk infants were less attentive and less affectively responsive than normal infants, and their mothers were more active. Fathers of both high‐risk and normal infants engaged in more game playing and laughed more frequently than mothers during interactions. Although the behaviors of the normal and high‐risk infants differed, as did the behaviors of mothers interacting with them, the fathers engaged in similar amounts of activity, smiling, laughing and playing games with normal and high‐risk infants. Fathers may be less disturbed than mothers by their high‐risk infants' lesser responsivity.