Maternal depression is a concurrent and longitudinal risk factor for children's development. Maternal depression exerts direct effects and indirect effects through proximal processes of mother-child dyadic interactions. Both depressed mothers and their infants are inattentive, unresponsive, affectively flat, and disengaged during naturalistic interactions, and their dyadic interactions have been described as less synchronous. Our primary objective is to investigate differences between depressed and non-depressed dyads in maternal behaviors, child behaviors, and dyadic behaviors in terms of latency, synchrony, and contingency. In the present study, we propose to examine the determinants and effects of dyadic interactions of depressed and nondepressed mothers with their infants across several domains of child development. We plan to replicate and extend previous work by observing the dyads in naturalistic as well as experimental face-to-face settings at 5, 12, and 24 months.

Groups of depressed and nondepressed mothers will be selected on the basis of self-reports of depressive symptoms and by clinical diagnostic interviews.

These assessments will be repeated at 12 and 24 months to assess the course of maternal depression. The study consists of a home visit, a lab visit, and administration of questionnaires to mothers and their spouses or partners at three time points. All maternal and child behaviors during dyadic interactions will be coded as continuous streams of data for analysis of reciprocal influences within the dyad. By coding a range of behaviors such as facial affect, vocalization, physical activity, and visual attention of the mother and infant, we hope to capture variations in mother-child interactions, both between and within depressed and nondepressed dyads. Differences in styles of dyadic interactions have been shown to have important consequences on subsequent child development in several domains. In addition, experimental simulations will consist of instructed 'depressed' and 'happy' simulations of mothers with their infants. Specific simulations allow observation of changes in infant behaviors from the spontaneous episodes and comparison between depressed and nondepressed dyads.

Understanding the context of child development, both normative and atypical, is important as means of elucidating the processes by which maternal depression operates as a risk factor for children's cognitive and socioemotional development. Several socio-demographic and psychosocial factors will be assessed by maternal and paternal self-reports to examine which factors exacerbate or buffer the effects of maternal depression. In addition to modifying the observations of maternal and child behaviors to be age-appropriate, new measures will be introduced at 12 and 24 months to capture child's functioning in multiple areas.