This project investigates how qualities of the mother-child relationship are linked to peer competence in preschoolers, and how this link is affected by maternal schizophrenia and affective disorder. Schizophrenic and depressed women have deficits in their won interpersonal relationships, which are reflected in the mother-child relationship. Poor mother-child relations may result in a child who is incompetent in per relations. However, the findings regarding social competence in offspring of emotionally disturbed mother show no clear nor consistent patterns of deficits in one diagnostic group of children versus another. It may not be maternal psychiatric diagnosis per se (schizophrenic vs. depressed vs. no disorder) which is associated with social incompetence in her child. Rather, it may be the cross-diagnosis deficits in the mother-child relationship, which have an impact on early peer relations. It is hypothesized that these deficits will lie on a continuum with the strengths of healthy mothers. According to this formulation, the pattern of associations between mother-child relationship characteristics and peer competence should be similar for risk and normal groups, showing quantitative differences along the same dimensions, as opposed to each group possessing qualitatively different patterns of associations.

This study focuses on mother-child affective/interactional qualities and attachment security; and relates them to peer competence in a playgroup setting. Affective qualities of the mother-child relationship and the quality of attachment have been related to peer interaction in normal populations. However, there is no research investigating these mother-child constructs in schizophrenic, depressed and normal "dyads" and relating them to the child's peer competence.

Therefore, mothers and their 3 year old children will be assessed individually and as a dyad, to describe their social interaction, affective communicative styles, and attachment. Playgroups of 5 children will meet for one morning in a preschool atmosphere. Qualities of the mother, child and the dyadic interaction will be related to the child's competence in the peer setting.

This research is unique because it investigates the environmental impact of living with a seriously disturbed mother, both on the quality of the mother-child relationship and on peer skills.

R03MH042449

1987-06-01

1988-12-31