ABSTRACT
The major content of this presentation will be devoted to three descriptions of the longitudinal course of interaction between mother and child pairs over the first 18 months of life. These three pairs are part of a sample of 22 mother–child pairs whose records are being analyzed as part of a naturalistic longitudinal study that has been going on at Boston University Medical Center since 1954. As research intensifies in the area of early mother–infant interaction, there is the opportunity to focus minutely on relatively small behavioral units. At the same time, there is a need to view these smaller units in their relation to broader interactional trends operating over longer spans of time. Empirical data of this latter sort is less frequently reported.
