Maya Gratier

Live maternal speech and singing have beneficial effects on hospitalized preterm infants.

To study the effects of live maternal speaking and singing on physiological parameters of preterm infants in the NICU and to test the hypothesis that vocal stimulation can have differential effects on preterm infants at a behavioural level.

Perinatal mental health.

Pregnancy is the time during which physiological and psychological preparation for motherhood takes place. It has long been considered a blessed time, free of psychiatric disorders. However, there is now strong evidence that major depressive disorder may occur not only after birth but even during the prepartum. Most often, mental illness during this period is underestimated, not assessed, therefore not diagnosed, and consequently goes untreated. Reviewing the literature on the negative impact of both maternal and infant health in case of perinatal depression, we underline that recognizing and treating prenatal depression will lead to preventive and curative treatments for mothers, enhance infant health, and therefore positively influence mother-infant relationships.

Imitation and Repetition of Prosodic Contour in Vocal Interaction at 3 Months.

This study investigates vocal imitation of prosodic contour in ongoing spontaneous interaction with 10- to 13-week-old infants. Audio recordings from naturalistic interactions between 20 mothers and infants were analyzed using a vocalization coding system that extracted the pitch and duration of individual vocalizations. Using these data, the authors categorized a sample of 1,359 vocalizations on the basis of 7 predetermined contours. Pairs of identical successive vocalizations were considered to be imitations if they involved both partners or repetitions if they were produced by the same partner. Results show that not only do mothers and infants imitate and repeat prosodic contour types in the course of vocal interaction but they do so selectively. Indeed, different contours are imitated and repeated by each partner. These findings suggest that imitation and repetition of prosodic contours have specific functions for communication and vocal development in the 3rd month of life.

wHAT LIES BEHIND POSTNATAL DEPRESSION: IS IT ONLY A MOOD DISORDER?

Postnatal depression (PND) is a common condition that has been extensively researched specifically because of its negative impact on the mother-infant relationship. Psychiatric research has looked at comorbidity of major depressive disorder and found it to be strongly associated with Axis II disorders. This studys principal aim was to investigate whether there is a greater incidence of personality disorder (PD) among a PND population than among a non-PND population at 3 months postpartum. A secondary aim was to define the different types of PD. Depression was assessed with the Montgomery and Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), and PD was assessed with the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality Disorders (SIDP-IV) in 109 women with their 12-week-old infants. Twice as many depressed mothers had PD. The PND group presented a greater number of severe clinical symptoms than the nondepressed group (p < .002). Further research is necessary to reexamine the heterogeneity of PND and reassess its impact on infant development.

Phrasing and fragmented time in “pathological” Mother-infant vocal interaction

This paper presents the results of an ecological perturbation study of mother-infant vocal interaction. We compared the temporal organisation of spontaneous interactions between 3–month-old infants and mothers who suffered from “borderline personality disorder” and control mothers and infants. Previous studies of vocal interaction have shown that they present a hierarchical temporal organisation. This study focused specifically on “phrasal” units in the flow of expressive sounds produced by mothers and infants that can be segmented according to rules similar to those used by music performers, composers and listeners. Phrases in interaction are perceived and shaped by features such as final lengthening, pausing or lowered pitch and intensity. Acoustic analyses of audio recordings of 34 mother-infant dyads were performed. Results showed that the interactions of mothers with “borderline personality disorder” contained fewer “phrases” with longer phrase final pauses than those of control dyads. These findings suggest that the temporal organisation and quality of vocalisation, rather than the degree of maternal involvement, has a fundamental effect on the infants motivation to partake in lively interaction.

The Still-Face: A Greater Challenge for Infants of Mothers With Borderline Personality Disorder

The main aim of this study was to ascertain whether infants as young as 3 months of age, whose mothers suffer from borderline personality disorder (BPD), are already at risk of greater dysregulation than infants of mothers without BPD when faced with a minor stressful experience. Nineteen mothers diagnosed with BPD and 41 controls with no history of psychopathology and their 3-month-old infants were observed using Tronicks Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm. The authors found that infants whose mothers have BPD express less positive vocalizations and less nonautonomic self-regulation than infants of mothers with no psychopathology. The stress of the Still-Face episode affects their gaze and self-regulation behaviors more strongly than those of infants of controls. The Reunion episode seems particularly challenging for mothers with BPD, who show fewer smiles and an increase in intrusive behavior. Because infants and their mothers with BPD are already dysregulated at 3 months postpartum, envisaging very early intervention seems warranted.

Tacit Communicative Style and Cultural Attunement in Classroom Interaction

This article examines the effect of a teachers cultural representations and tacit communicative style on interactive practices in the classroom. We compare two second-grade classrooms constituted predominantly by Latino immigrant children and teachers with differing cultural representations of education. Through video and acoustic analyses of matched samples of classroom activities we document a discourse style that is more group oriented in one of the classrooms and more individual oriented in the other classroom. Our analyses show that the group-oriented communicative style is characterized by greater cooperative overlap and chorusing, more student self-selection, less teacher selection and less arm raising, less confirmatory repetition by the teacher, more frequent collaborative completion and more criticism, and less praise. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, we go on to describe evidence of greater cultural attunement between teacher and students when they share a common tacit communicative style. The principal index of attunement highlighted by our results is student participation. We also suggest that patterns of interactive timing in classroom discourse provide insight into processes of cultural attunement and conflict.

Update on Mental Health of Infants and Children of Parents Affected With Mental Health Issues

This paper highlights the most recent publications, in the field of psychiatry, on offspring of patients with psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and then summarizes what we know about the progeny of adults with mood disorders, the most prevalent of parental disorders. Studies examining personality disorders and contextual factors such as stress and trauma are examined with a focus on the crucial question of development and attachment status in children. Findings converge to reveal that offspring of parents (generally mothers) with most major psychiatric disorders present a higher risk for all mental disorders, and a wide range of disorders are also found in children, adolescent, and finally adult offspring of mothers with mood and anxiety disorders. Developmental psychopathology and infant and child psychiatry have focused on early relationship formation through social interaction and attachment patterns as pathways affected by vulnerability or resilience factors. First year of life longitudinal studies following mothers and infants has shown that maternal psychopathology is positively correlated with higher risk of attachment issues. It would seem that pathology appears when adaptation to real-life contexts becomes difficult in association with an accumulation of negative individual characteristics and environmental circumstances. We suggest that in order to move forward psychiatry should embrace a developmental cascade model, which posits a cumulative pathway for the emergence of psychopathology in the developing child. We propose that we have sufficient knowledge today to start implementing multilevel approaches to enhance the health and mental health of the next generation.

Exposure to human voices has beneficial effects on preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit

We reviewed the literature up to March 2016 on the effects of nonmaternal voices on preterm infants’ clinical outcomes. Of the 11 studies that met the inclusion criteria, 10 focused on short‐term outcomes and one looked at long‐term effects. The studies mainly showed that vocal stimuli increased preterm infants’ stability in terms of heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation and behavioural measures. Improvements in feeding skills were also reported. The methods and the measures used in the studies were heterogeneous, making it difficult to draw reliable conclusions.

The Development of Infant Participation in Communication

Introduction: Full-term infants experience human voices in ecological contexts. Transnatal memory of the mother’s voice plays a crucial role in guiding infants’ first social encounters. On the basis of the earliest interactions with social partners, involving well-coordinated behavior, infants rapidly develop communicative and socio-cognitive skills.