MU assistant professor Smith: 'The overall objective we are hoping to accomplish is to better understand how mother-child interaction works'

A recent study conducted by the University of Missouri found that mothers struggling with depression are likely to take longer to respond to their children during back-and-forth dialogue according to an MU news release published on February 17. The study results provide the basis for further research to determine if the slower response time has potential long-term impacts on the children's language development, vocabulary, or academic outcomes.

The study, titled "Maternal depression and the timing of mother-child dialogue," was led by MU School of Health Professions assistant professor Nicholas Smith. He and his team listened to audio recordings of over 100 families involved in the Early Head Start program, a federal initiative for children with families with income at or below the poverty line. Some of the involved mothers were struggling with depression, and the team studied how much time had passed between responses from a mother and her child during back-and-forth dialogue.

“We found that the time gap in between responses, in general, gets shorter between mother and child as the child ages, and we also found the mom’s timing tended to predict the child’s timing and vice versa,” said Smith. “Mothers and children are in sync. Children who were slower to respond to their mom often had moms who were slower to respond to the child, and children who were faster to respond to their mom had moms who were faster to respond to the child. The significant new finding was that the moms who were more depressed took longer to respond to their child compared to moms who were less depressed.”

The children featured in the audio recordings were between 14-36 months old. In the future, Smith plans to further study the dialogue response timing for the same individuals when the children were in pre-kindergarten and, later, fifth grade to examine how the effects present themselves later in the children's development.

“The overall objective we are hoping to accomplish is to better understand how mother-child interaction works as well as the underlying mechanisms and potential factors at play,” Smith said. “Once we identify what factors drive successful development outcomes and what factors potentially impair development, we can better identify at-risk children and then tailor potential interventions toward those that can benefit from them the most.”

Funding for the study was provided by the Mizzou Alumni Association.