Maternal responses and development of communication skills in extremely preterm infants

The present study examined maternal responses to infants’ spontaneous communicative behaviors in a sample of 20 extremely-low-gestational-age (ELGA) infants and 20 full-term (FT) infants during 30 minutes of play interaction when infants were 12 months of age. Relations between maternal responses and infants’ communication skills at 12 and 24 months were investigated. Maternal responses were coded according to their contingency and degree of relevance to the infant’s communicative signal. Despite the less advanced gestural abilities of ELGA infants, their mothers produced high percentages of contingent and relevant responses, as did mothers of their FT peers. Maternal contingent and highly relevant responses (i.e., those with a repeated label) were associated with ELGA infants’ receptive and expressive communication skills at 12 months and predicted expressive communication skills at 24 months. Results suggest that contingent maternal responses with a repeated label following infants’ spontaneous communicative behaviors support communicative development, particularly among ELGA infants.