Volume 5, Number 3, July–September 2005

Linking Maternal Perceptions to Behavior: Nurturing Attitudes and Facial Expressions of Affect
Teresa Kamman, Lois Muir, Lynne Sanford Koester, and Dimiter M. Dimitrov

High levels of nurturing attitudes before birth predict fewer negative facial displays during interaction with the infant at four to six weeks after birth.

Parental Psychological Distress, Parent – Child Relationship Qualities, and Child Adjustment: Direct, Mediating, and Reciprocal Pathways
Lauren M. Papp, E. Mark Cummings, and Marcie C. Goeke-Morey

The extent to which parents’ psychological symptoms relate to child adjustment problems depends on qualities of the parent – child relationship, particularly parental acceptance and psychological autonomy.

Predictors of Variation in Maternal Talk to Children: A Longitudinal Study of Low-Income Families
Meredith L. Rowe, Barbara Alexander Pan, and Catherine Ayoub

Low-income mothers vary in amount and lexical diversity of talk directed to children during the early childhood years, and maternal characteristics such as education, literacy skills, depression and age help explain variation in measures of maternal communicative input.