The families included in the study had income which was at or below the federal poverty line. The research team measured depression risk levels in mothers with Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression scale (CES-D). When the children were 14 months old and 36 months old, they compared the response times of back-and-forth conversations between mothers and their children. They found out that the time gap in between responses, in general, gets shorter between mother and child as the child ages, and also found the mother’s timing tended to predict the child’s timing and vice versa.
According to APA, turn-taking in social psychology refers to the alternating behaviour between two individuals (here it is referred to as the dialogue between the child and the mother).
The study can be used in dyadic therapy where the mother and the child can be treated together at the same time. As a result of the above research, slow-responding mothers had slow-responding children. Here, the mother can be asked to initiate a positive conversation in a clinical setting in presence of a trained therapist, in order to improve the well-being and child’s timing.
In infant-parent psychotherapy, the focus is on children below five years of age where they have had developmental and social problems while growing up due to their interaction with their mothers. It also focuses on secure attachment.
During an experiment on Strange situation, Ainworth and her colleagues observed children, and they found out three types of attachment, viz., secure attachment, avoidant attachment and ambivalent attachment. The above study in joint with these terms can also be useful in further research with enhancing these attachment styles.
