Maternal experience of their infants’ crying in the context of war trauma: Determinants and consequences

We examined, first, how prenatal maternal mental health and war trauma predicted mothers’ experience of their infant crying, indicated by emotions, cognitions, and behavior; and second, how these experiences influenced the mother–infant interaction and infant development. Participants were 511 Palestinian mothers from the Gaza Strip, reporting their war trauma, symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and perceived stress during pregnancy (Time 1). They reported experiences of infant crying at 4 months (Time 2), and the mother–infant interaction and infant sensorimotor and language development at 12 months of infants’ age (Time 3). Results revealed that maternal mental health problems, but not war trauma, were important to experiences of infant crying. A high level of PTSD symptoms predicted negative emotions evoked by infant crying, and high depressive symptoms predicted low active and positive responses to crying. Unexpectedly, high prenatal perceived stress predicted high active and positive responsiveness. Concerning the consequences, mothers’ sensitive interpretation of infant crying predicted optimal infant sensorimotor development, and mothers’ active and positive responses predicted high emotional availability in mother–infant interaction. Crying is the first communication tool for infants, and mothers’ sensitive responses to crying contribute to infant well-being. Therefore, reinforcing mother's optimal responses is important when helping war-affected dyads.     

Effects of male postpartum depression on father–infant interaction: The mediating role of face processing

It is estimated that postpartum depression affects up to 25% of men. Despite such high prevalence, the majority of studies on postpartum depression are focused on mothers, and the role of paternal depression and its effects on infant development have been overlooked by researchers and clinicians. The present study aimed to fill this gap by investigating the effect of paternal postpartum depression on father–infant interactions. In addition, we examined whether differences in face recognition mediated the effects of paternal postpartum depression on father–infant interactions. A total of 61 father–infant dyads (17 postpartum depression, 44 controls) took part in the study. Results revealed that compared to controls, fathers with postpartum depression had a worse pattern of interaction with their infants on measures of responsiveness, mood, and sensitivity; they also had greater difficulty in recognizing happy adult faces, but greater facility in recognizing sad adult faces. Depressed fathers attributed greater intensities to sad adult and infant faces. The tendency to attribute greater intensity to sad adult faces was confirmed as a partial mediator of the effect of paternal postpartum depression on measures of father responsiveness and as a full mediator of the effects of paternal depression on father sensitivity. Clinical implications and suggestions for further studies are discussed.     

La pragmatique développementale : état des lieux et perspectives

The aim of this article is to summarise the field covered by the submitted theme: “Developmental pragmatics: normal aspects and pathological aspects”, to discuss the tracks already explored by published articles and to indicate the research tracks to be explored. We are trying to show how the developmental pragmatics allowed to take in consideration the social uses of language and communication, to renew the theoretical perspectives which model children development, to increase our empirical knowledge and to finally progress in the building of relevant methodological tools. Therefore pragmatics allow to solve the mental processes which underlie the use of communication and language by children.     

La Rhétorique Aristotelicienne comme “Logique Orale”

Ce texte se propose d'examiner en quoi le discours oral se différencie de la composition écrite. La logique orale a pour caractéristique principale de recourir à des prémisses ou à des conclusions qui ont déjà valeur de maxime pour l'auditeur. Il s'agit donc d'une véritable mise à l'épreuve de chaque position. La logique orale touche directement le contenu. Elle s'oppose à la dialectique — elle est liée à une logique formelle — tout en étant complémentaire.Traduction de Paolo Zaccaria. Revue par C. Hoogaert.     

Differential effectiveness of explicit verbal feedback on children's communication skills

In order to specify by which combination of content and form dimensions the explicit verbal feedback comes to be most effective in enhancing communication skills, a training experiment was designed where both dimensions were factorially manipulated. Forty children (mean age, 5–10) were randomly assigned to one of four treatment conditions: Interrogative Cognitive feedback, Declarative Cognitive feedback, Interrogative Perceptual feedback, and Declarative Perceptual feedback. The Cognitive type of feedback specified the successive cognitive steps underlying the comparison activity whereas the Perceptual type of feedback stressed only the necessity of describing perceptual differences when communicating. These two contents of feedback were either provided by a set of standardized questions or of declarative statements, after each trial of a speaking training task. Subjects were given a pretest, and immediate and delayed posttests comprised of a speaking task and a listening generalization task. A 2 (Contents) × 2 (Forms) × 2 (Tasks) × 2 (Post-tests) analysis of variance showed that all subjects performed significantly better on the speaking task than on the listening generalization task and that subjects in the Interrogative Cognitive condition performed better than subjects in the three other conditions, on both post-test tasks. Results emphasize the mutual facilitating effects of the Interrogative Form and the Cognitive Content of explicit feedback and are discussed in terms of the generalization and stability of the induced learning.     

A comparison of deaf, normal, and brain damaged adults on a tachistoscopic task

Printed words and letters, pictures of signed words, and pictures of finger-spelled letters were presented tachistoscopically to deaf, normal, and brain-damaged adults. The findings suggest that (1) the deaf show no cerebral asymmetry for any of the material but found identification of the stimuli very difficult unless a forced-choice recognition procedure was used or the exposure time was very long; (2) both the normal and the brain-damaged groups show left hemisphere superiority for printed material but no cerebral specialization for signed material; (3) the left-right hemisphere difference is more marked in the brain-damaged group regardless of which hemisphere showed most damage. This may be explained, at least in some cases, by impaired transfer across the corpus callosum.