Peter S. Kaplan University of Colorado, Denver An Acquired Learning Disability in Infants of Chronically Depressed Mothers Peter S. Kaplan University of Colorado, Denver

Depression is a Serious Public Health Problem WHO estimates that by the year 2020 depression will be 2nd leading cause of disability world-wide economic costs personal suffering family suffering

Behavioral and Physiological Correlates of Postpartum Depression Mothers withdrawn or intrusive negative affect less playful less contingent responding relative left frontal EEG hypoactivation Infants negative affect less attentive less play/exploration relative left frontal EEG hypoactivation at risk for insecure attachment, later psychopathology, and cognitive deficits

Properties of Infant-Directed Speech elevated vocal pitch (fundamental frequency or F0 ) exaggerated pitch changes different pitch contour shapes (e.g., rising, falling) in different interactional contexts (arousing, soothing) nearly universal across cultures

Functions of Infant-Directed Speech elicit and maintain infant attention modulate affect and arousal facilitate learning speed language processing

Funded By… National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Swan Foundation of Denver CU-Denver (thanks to Dr. Fernie Baca, Vice Chancellor for Research) Psychology Faculty Research Fund (thanks to Dr. Rick Gardner)

Four-Month-Old Infant

Conditioned-Attention Paradigm Pairing Phase “Forward:” Tone-->Face (6 pairings) “Backward:” Face-->Tone (6 pairings) “Random:” Tone//Face (6 of each) “No Tone:” Face Alone (6 times) Summation Test Phase Tone + Checkerboard vs. Checkerboard Alone

Rapid Associative Learning in 4-Month-Old Infants

ID Speech Promotes Infant Learning Better Than AD Speech

Effects of ID Speech Produced By Depressed Mothers recruited 20 mothers of 2- to 6-month-olds administered BDI and SCID tape recorded “pet the gorilla” speech segments used tapes in tests with 225 4-month-old infants of non-depressed mothers

ID Speech Produced By Mothers with Symptoms of Depression Fails to Promote Infant Associative Learning

Acoustic Correlates of Maternal Depression measured mean F0 and mean DF0 in “gorilla” utterances performed hierarchical linear regression to examine proportion of variance in acoustic measures accounted for by maternal age, education, number of children, infant age, depression diagnosis, medication, and remission status

Acoustic Correlates of Postpartum Depression

“3-Test” Design Own Unfamiliar DEP Unfamiliar ND Mother Depressed n=12 Mother Not Depressed

Infants of Depressed Mothers Are Competent Learners, But Fail to Learn in Response to Their Own Mothers’ ID Speech

Older Infants of Depressed Mothers Fail to Learn in Response to Non-Depressed Mothers’ ID Speech

Conclusions 4-month-old infants readily learn associations ID speech facilitates associative learning postpartum depression affects ID speech flat ID speech fails to promote learning younger infants of depressed mothers learn well in response to non-depressed caregivers longer exposure to depressed caregivers has generalized effects on infant learning implications for interventions

Implications and Future Directions does this generalize to the “real world?” interventions: who, what, and when? can infants of depressed mothers be “inoculated” against potential adverse effects? long-term follow-ups: MCDI Vocabulary Study