Associations between maternal behavior, infant joint attention, and social vulnerability

Abstract

Maternal behaviors, coordination of attention between caregivers and infants, and social vulnerability of families are factors of great relevance for child development. Given the scarcity of research on early childhood in the Latin American context, maternal behaviors were studied, emphasizing parental sensitivity, and its relationship with joint attention and social vulnerability in dyads of mothers of children between 9 and 13 months. Sensitivity was found to be positively associated with joint attention, and negatively related with social vulnerability. In turn, intrusive and indifferent maternal behaviors decrease when joint attention increases. Furthermore, as the mother´s contingent, quality, and receptive behavior increased, passive coordination ability in all trials tended to improve. The conclusion highlights the need to carry out interventions in vulnerability contexts from the first years of life, considering individual and environmental variables.