Speech patterning of natural discourse of well and depressed mothers and their young children

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SPEECH PATTERNING OF NATURAL DISCOURSE OF ~ELL ANDDEPRESSED MOTHERS AND THEIR YOUNG CHILDREN.Tracy Sherman & Zvia Breznitz

The children of depressed mothers are at a three­fold risk for later development of major affectivedisorder. In order to understand aspects of theenvironmental contribution to this heightened riskstatus, we examined whether depressed and healthymothers differed from ·one another in their patternof verbal interaction with their children. Priorresearch with depressed adults indicated that theyhave reduced verbal productivity. The questionaddressed in the current study was whether such apattern of reduced speech is evident in the dailybehavior of depressed women in their role as mother.

18 well and 14 depressed mothers and their three­year-old children were observed in three naturalisticsettings: two non-stress events - lunch preparationand eating lunch, and one stress event - awaiting adoctor's visit.

The findings for the non-stress events were thatdepressed women show markedly less speech than dohealthy women even when their speaking partner istheir own young child, and they respond more slowlyto the cessation of their child's speech.

The children's data indicate that the cumulativeeffects of living with and being socialized by adepressed mother are already apparent in the speechbehavior of the children. These children speaksignificantly less than do the offspring of healthywomen.

In the stress situation, the depressed mothersaffirmed their children's anxiety by dramaticallyincreasing their overall speech output. In contrast,the healthy Women did not change their total speechand, thereby, conveyed to their children that therewas nothing to worry about.

The findings are discussed in terms of the long­term effects of these two patterns of socialization.