Blind ratings of mother-infant interaction in home movies of prepsychotic and normal infants

Home movies of infants later diagnosed as having early childhood psychoses were compared with movies of normal control infants. A scale of attachment indicators measured mother-infant dyadic avoidance and reciprocity in the first 6 months of the infant's life. Three judges blind to diagnosis saw a general trend to dampened interaction for prepsychotic infants and their mothers. Prepsychotic and normal infants were not significantly different in touching and eye gaze behaviors, whereas mothers of prepsychotic infants exhibited less adequate eye gaze and touching than mothers of normal infants.