1. Objectifs

Intentions :
This thesis by articles is composed of two articles, but only the second one is summarized here. «The purpose of the [second] study was to investigate the communicative functions of mutual touch during mother-infant interactions and their relation with infants’ affect and the quality of the mother-infant relationship.» (p. 65)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«The final sample consisted of two groups of 5-month-old full-term (n = 40) and VLBW [very-low-birthweight]/preterm (n = 40) infants and their mothers.» (p. 72) «[M]others and their infants were recruited from birth records from a major community hospital in the Montreal (Quebec, Canada) area.» (p. 73) «Each dyad participated in the face-to-face SF [Still-Face] procedure […], which consisted of three 2-min face-to-face interaction periods (normal, SF, and reunion) between the mother and her infant.» (p. 75)

Instruments :
Grille d’analyse

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

The results of the second study «indicated that full-term infant-mother dyads spent significantly more time engaged in playful and regulatory mutual touch compared to VLBW/preterm infant-mother dyads who spent significantly more time engaged in attention-centered, unbalanced, and guided mutual touch. Infant smiling was found to significantly co-occur with playful mutual touch for both the full-term and VLBW/preterm infants, while fretting co-occurred with unbalanced mutual touch for VLBW/preterm infants. Higher levels of maternal sensitivity and regulatory mutual touch were associated for full-term dyads, while lower levels of maternal sensitivity were associated with unbalanced mutual touch for VLBW/preterm dyads. Results from this study enable a more comprehensive understanding of the functions of mutual touching, and suggest differences in which mutual touching behaviors are organized with infants’ affect and relationship dimensions between mothers and their infants.» (p. 65)