abstract: Maternal intrusiveness is an important predictor of child mental health problems. Evidence links high levels of maternal intrusiveness to later infant negativity, and child internalizing problems. However, children also influence the manner in which parents interact with them. For example, infants that show more negative emotionality elicit less positive parenting in their caregivers. Infant affect is also associated with later child internalizing difficulties. Although previous research has demonstrated that maternal intrusiveness is related to infant affect and child internalizing symptomatology, and that infant affect is a predictor of internalizing problems and parenting, no studies have looked at the transactional relations between early maternal intrusiveness and infant affect, and whether these relations in infancy predict later childhood internalizing symptomatology. The present study investigates young children's risk for internalizing problems as a function of the interplay between maternal intrusiveness and infant affect during the early infancy period in a low-income, Mexican-American sample. Participants included 323 Mexican-American women and their infants. Data were collected when the infants were 12, 18, 24, and 52 weeks old. Mothers were asked to interact with their infants in semi-structured tasks, and mother and infant behaviors were coded at 12, 18, and 24 weeks. Maternal intrusiveness was globally rated, and duration of infant negative- and positive affect was recorded. Mother reports of child Internalizing symptomatology were obtained at 52 weeks. Findings suggest that there are transactional relations between early maternal intrusiveness and infant negative affect, while the relations between infant positive affect and maternal intrusiveness are unidirectional, in that infant positivity influences parenting but not vice versa. Further, findings also imply that neither maternal intrusiveness, nor infant affect, influence later toddler internalizing symptomatology. Identifying risk processes in a Mexican-American sample adds to our understanding of emerging infant difficulties in this population, and may have implications for early interventions. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2014

Research has shown that by 7-months of age infants demonstrate recognition of emotion by successfully matching faces and voices based on affect in an intermodal matching procedure. It is often assumed that once an ability is present the development of that ability has "ceased." Therefore, no research has examined if and how the ability to match faces and voices based on affect develops after the first 7-months. This study examined how the ability to match faces and voices based on affect changes from 7- to 12-months. Looking at infant's proportion of total looking time (PTLT) results showed that, consistent with previous research, 7-month-old infants looked significantly longer at the affectively congruent facial expression. However, 12-month- olds showed no matching of faces and voices. Further analyses showed that 7-month-olds also increased their looking to facial expressions while being presented with the affectively congruent vocal expression. Once again, 12-month-olds failed to show significant matching. That 7-month- olds were able to demonstrate matching while 12-month-olds failed to do so is possibly a result of 12-month-olds attending to other information. More research is needed to better understand how infants' recognition of affect and overall perceptual abilities change as they develop.