An Investigation of Maternal Play Styles during the Co-Occupation of Maternal-Infant Play

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this secondary analysis was to examine if play styles used by mothers when their infants are 6 months or older are exhibited by mothers who play with their 3–4 month old infants.

Method: Sixteen healthy, mostly Caucasian, maternal-infant dyads participated in a repeated measures design study that consisted of two, 3-minute play episodes separated by an interval ranging from 2 to 10 minutes in length. Digital video recordings of the first and second play episodes were analyzed and coded using three specific play styles cited in the literature (attention-supporting, attention-directing and control play). Duration of time spent in each play style was determined and descriptive statistics were used to summarize the percentage of time the mothers exhibited each style across the two play episodes. Dependent t-tests were used to examine differences in the amount of time spent in each play style across episode one and two.

Results: Mothers exhibited attention-supporting play for the longest duration of time during play episodes one and two. Subsequently, the mothers engaged in attention-directing play. Control play was demonstrated the least. Statistically significant differences were noted in attention-supporting such that mothers increased the time spent using attention-supporting play during play episode two in comparison to play episode one.

Conclusion: Mothers of very young infants appeared to adjust their play styles and this may reflect the dynamic nature of co-occupations such as maternal-infant play.

Keywords:

• Co-occupation
• Early intervention
• Maternal play styles

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Virginia Horne Henry Fund-University of Wisconsin Madison, College of Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. We acknowledge the mothers and infants who participated in this study and Marta Muusz for her assistance with the Noldus system.