Mother-child interaction patterns in maltreated children: an observational study

Abstract

We compared mother-child interaction patterns of dyads of maltreated versus nonmaltreated children under two observational conditions: Academic and free-play. We evaluated the time assigned to different behavior categories by mother and child, the distribution of consequences by mothers over aggressive and positive behavior of child, and the mother-child contingency preferences. It was found that dyads with maltreatment background displayed higher indexes of aversive behavior, aversive exchanges and instructions than normal dyads. However, the scaling process as proposed by the coercion theory was not observed. These findings are discussed in the context of models oriented to the explanation of interactional patterns of children with physical maltreatment background.