Social Interaction with the parent during infancy and later intellectual competence in children born preterm

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Abstract
Maternal caregiving and social interaction patterns were assessed for 55 prematurely born infants at 1, 8, and 24 months. Mothers were considered more responsive if they scored above the median on 2 of the 3 home visit observations. Gesell Developmental Schedules were given to the children at 24 months, Stanford‐Binet at age 5 and WISC‐R at age 8 years. At each age period through 8 years, children whose caregivers had been socially responsive in infancy had cognitive scores superior to those of children whose caregivers were less socially responsive in infancy. By age 8 years, being reared in a higher social class home was insufficient by itself, as was a good infant‐mother relationship, to produce high cognitive scores. Both factors were necessary to result in intellectually competent children.