Mothers' ability to discriminate cry types in low-birthweight premature and full-term infants

Mothers' perceptions of infant crying were investigated. Participants were 40 primiparous mothers of full-term newborns, low-birthweight premature (LBWP) newborns, 6-month-old full-terms, and 6-month-old LBWP infants. Mothers listened to tape-recorded cries of LBWP or full-term infants and responded to the following: cause of cry, confidence in their response to the cause of cry question, aversiveness of the cry, how upset the infant sounded, how ''sick'' the infant sounded, and whether the infant needed to be held. Analysis of responses indicated that LBWP infants' cries were perceived as more aversive and more ''sick sounding'' than those of full-term infants. Mothers, especially mothers of infants, were more inaccurate when discriminating the causes of LBWP infants' cries. Several findings indicated that mothers of LBWP infants are more apt to withdraw from a premature infant's cry than respond to it. This study suggests early communication problems in the LBWP infant-mother dyad and supports previous findings concerning the potential for later social interaction difficulties.