ABSTRACT
Resumen El presente trabajo indaga sobre la influencia de la depresión posparto (DPP) materna en las características prosódicas del Habla Dirigida al Bebé (HDB) y las emisiones preverbales infantiles en diversos contextos de interacción madre-hijo/a. Participaron 40 madres y sus bebés entre 3 y 6 meses de edad. Las madres fueron evaluadas con la Escala de DPP de Edimburgo (Cox, Holden y Sagoysky, 1987) y las díadas madre-hijo fueron filmadas en sesiones de juego no estructurado; 27 madres no presentaron indicadores de DPP y 13, sí. Las madres con DPP emitieron menor cantidad de vocalizaciones que las del grupo control y presentaron menor intensidad media y máxima al hablarle a sus bebés de 5-6 meses y esto fue particularmente observable en bebés varones (p < .07). Además, estas madres usaron menos curvas descendentes al dirigirse a bebés más pequeños (3-4 meses) y curvas ascendentes y descendentes al dirigirse a sus hijos varones (p < .01). En los bebés -tanto en los de 5-6 meses como en varones- (con madres con DPP se observó menor producción de emisiones preverbales, aunque sin ser significativa. La DPP materna impactó en los bebés más pequeños observándose una disminución de la frecuencia fundamental (p < .01) y de las intensidades media y máxima, pero solo en bebés varones (p < .05). También se halló una ausencia de curvas con forma de U en los varones e hijos de madres con DPP (p < .05). Aparentemente, la DPP afecta el HDB materno, el que varía a nivel acústico y prosódico en función de la edad del bebé afectando las emisiones preverbales, siendo mayor el impacto en los varones.
Abstract The present work aims to study the influence of postpartum depression (PPD) on the acoustic and melodic characteristics present in the vocal interaction between the mother and her baby. We analyze acoustic qualities of the mother's voice when she is talking to her baby (Infant-Directed Speech) such as fundamental frequency (F0 maximum, medium and minimum values) and intensity (maximum, medium and minimum values). The changes of F0 during a vocalization (intonation contours such as rising, falling, bell-shape, U-shape and sinusoidal and flat contours) were also examined. The same prosodic parameters were investigated in regard to prelinguistic vocalizations. The mothers were healthy, primiparous and native speakers of argentinian spanish. The babies were 3 to 6 month old, and those with congenital diseases or diseases that could affect the assessment of the variables under consideration were excluded. We evaluated 40 dyads of mother and child who attend the University Hospital of Maternity and Neonatology of Córdoba, Argentina. The presence of indicators for PPD was examined through the Edinburgh postpartum depression Scale (Cox, Holden & Sagoysky, 1987). The mother-infant interactions were filmed in unstructured play sessions. The categorization of different contexts in which those interactions occur were taken into account for the acoustic and melodic analysis. The types of interactional contexts were distinguished according the classification made in Papousek, Papousek & Symmes (1991). The results showed that 27 mothers did not present indicators of PPD and 13 did. Acoustically, the infant-directed speech of mothers who exhibit the presence of postpartum depression indicators featured lower values of medium and maximum intensity (p < .07, in both measures) in babies between 5 and 6 months old, and in male babies in particular (F0 medium p < .04 and F0 maximum p < .03). According to the melodic characteristics of IDS, less use of falling contours (p < .01) was found in mothers with PPD when addressing smaller babies -3 and 4 month old- and the same happened with the rising (p < .02) and falling (p < .01) contours when their children were males. In preverbal vocalizations, children whose mothers had indicators of postpartum psychopathology showed a lower number of emissions at a later age (p < .1) and in males (p < .1). Also, lower values of F0 were found in smaller babies (F0 minimum p < .01 and F0 medium p < .002). Male infants of mothers with PPD also presented a decrease in intensity (medium p < .05 and maximum p < .03). Finally, at the melodic analysis, the rising contours were not used at all for the oldest babies (p < .01) nor the U-shaped contours in males (p < .02). In conclusion, the findings of the present study not only confirm -through physiological measures- the effect of the interaction of mothers with their babies as a function of the presence of signs of postpartum depression, already from the first months of childhood life, but also that these alterations are modulated by the age and the gender of the infant. It is essential, therefore, to continue investigating whether these difficulties related to the primary bond that each mom and her child share are perpetuated over time. It is also necessary to adopt a gender perspective of maternal and child relationships and the importance of therapeutic approach and intervention of the dyad as early as the first months after birth. At the same time, the exhaustive and immediate diagnosis of PPD cases is a matter of primary healthcare and the multidisciplinary intervention is urgent from the beginning in order to ensure maternal-infant metal health and harmonic social, cognitive and emotional development in children.
ABSTRACT
Esta revisión bibliográfica es un estudio teórico que presenta avances, actualización, comparación y análisis crítico de los resultados obtenidos en trabajos empíricos de autores nacionales e internacionales del campo de la Psicolingüística y referidos puntualmente al desarrollo infantil (Montero & León, 2007). Se hace hincapié en las cualidades de las interacciones madre-hijo en la etapa pre-lingüística, en situaciones de ausencia y presencia de indicadores de patología mental materna (específicamente depresión postparto- DPP). Se describe una serie de patrones y modalidades de comunicación que mamá y bebé adoptan durante dicha fase del desarrollo del lenguaje. En primer término, se presenta la caracterización acústica y kinestésica que el Habla Dirigida al Bebé (HDB) adquiere durante la etapa preverbal, diferenciando entre los patrones comunicacionales que corresponden tanto a los mensajes emitidos como recibidos y en segundo lugar, la caracterización acústica y kinésica de los patrones comunicacionales infantiles durante la primera etapa del desarrollo del lenguaje. Posteriormente, se plantea cómo resultan afectados dichos patrones en madres con indicios de DPP, identificando los patrones de comunicación del HDB en madres -con y sin DPP-, tanto los referidos a la emisión (aspectos acústicos, discursivos y kinestésicos) como a la recepción (aspectos perceptuales), así cómo se ven afectados los patrones comunicativos en los bebés de madres con DPP. Por último, se concluye sobre la trascendencia que tiene conocer las desviaciones observables en el proceso comunicativo mamá-bebé para el trabajo terapéutico en el vínculo diádico y para el desarrollo integral del infante.
This article is a theoretical review that analyzes the results of various psycholinguistic researches on language acquisition during the prelinguistic stage depending on the mother-child relationship in situations of absence and presence of mind pathology indicators-specifically maternal postpartum depression (PPD). It follows the description of a series of patterns and modes of communication that mother and son take during this phase of language development, following the findings of national and international renowned authors dedicated to this subject. This paper seeks, in the first instance, to conceptualize and establish the main properties of communicative exchanges that occur in the mother-child interactions during the preverbal stage in situations of no obvious pathology in the mother or the infant. Secondly, sought to focus on how these patterns and / or modes of interaction are affected when the mother shows signs of emotional involvement, timely postpartum depression. And also how, therefore, this affects these communicative exchanges. Indeed, this study will present a literature review of existing research data on the effects on the communication patterns between mother and baby-during preverbal stage- when the mother suffers PPD. This improvement is important because so far these data have not been found on one paper -but compiled partially written in various research- nor presented discriminating patterns that the various modes of communication that are acquired and used by each member of the dyad. Regarding the first objective, the results have been made by several scientific papers related to the characteristics that each of the modes in which communication between the preverbal child and primary adult caretaker-usually the mother- occurs. From this, one could envision that prosody is the feature of the HDB that has been studied through the objective measurement of various acoustic aspects such as fundamental frequency, melodic contours and pitch ranges. The combination, features and ways of using the various modes of communication depend intrinsically on the relationships between the biological, psychological, social and contextual conditions that occur and determine the course and the qualities of the mother-infant interaction. Regarding the second objective, it was possible to envision that when the mother is not emotionally available to the baby's demands behavior of the pair may be asynchronous. Even children of mother with PPD may get to use self-regulatory behaviors such as gaze aversion in order to reduce the negative affect arising from the lack of responsiveness and withdrawal that characterize the behavioral repertoire of their mothers (Tronick & Gianino, 1986). However, a substantial stand out in terms of the information gathered at this point of theoretical review, it was found that most of the data and reported results derived from research in developed European countries (mainly Germany and England) and United State. And samples were made up of middle-class mothers and / or high average, with a minimum level of higher education at age 13, adults, gilts or just another child without complications in pregnancy and childbirth and with healthy term infants. Just one research formed a heterogeneous sample of mothers from different races, belonging to lower social strata and lower education level -Kaplan, Burgess, Sliter, & Moreno, 2009). This implies that this investigation results can be generalized to the type of population, culture, language and race that has been studied. In the section dedicated to discussing matters relating to the socio-demographic characteristics of the sample and biases found, make impossible to universalize the results of detailed research group here treated. Finally, it concludes on the importance of knowing the observable deviations in the communication process mom-baby has for therapeutic work on the dyadic relationship, in general, and for the development of the infant, particularly.