Early Development and Parenting, zyxwvuts Vol. 1 zyxwvu (3), 169-181 (1992) Materna 1 Interactive Behaviour Towards Children With and Children Without Cleft Lip and Palate? Helma M. zyxw Y. Koomen Jan B. Hoeksma* Department zyxwvut of Developmental Psychology, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands The present study examined qualitative and quantitative differences in maternal interactive behaviour towards infants with and without cleft lip and palate (CLP).Thirty-three mother-child pairs with CLP and 34 pairs without CLP were videotaped at 3, 6,9, and 12 months of age in two sorts of play situations at home. In addition, the mothers were questioned by letter about their ability to recognize and interpret the child's signals; their willingness to respond to such signals; and the duration of shared daily activities in the context of feeding and play. The results showed that mothers of CLP children are somewhat less sensitive than other mothers. In addition, it appeared that CLP children play less with other people. Longer feeding times for CLP children appeared to be restricted to the age of 3 months. It is suggested that mothers of CLP children may be comparatively directive and stimulating because of uncertainty about additional deficiencies. Furthermore, they may be inclined to keep their children away from the outside world. Key words: Cleft lip and palate, maternal behaviour, sensitivity, infancy, longitudinal, multilevel. INTRODUCTION zyxwvut As is known from clinical sources, cleft lip and palate is accompanied by various problems for both children and parents (see for reviews Clifford, 1987; Koomen and Hoeksma, 1990). In the early period after birth, a considerable portion of the impact of cleft lip and palate is thought to be on the parents. It is the parents who have to cope with negative feelings about the malformation, and with worries about feeding, health, and medical interventions. zyxwv ~~~~ ~ -~~ 'The present article is based on our dissertation 'The development of mother-child interaction and attachment'. As such, it is part of the national Dutch EL0 project. *Requests for reprints: Dr J. B. Hoeksma, Department of Developmental Psychology, Free University, Van der Boechorststraat I, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. An important question is whether this congenital malformation and its associated problems do indeed affect the ways in which parents interact with their children during the first year of life. The few empirical studies on this subject suggest an affirmative answer to this question. Field and Vega- Lahr (1984)and Wasserman et al. (1985,1987) report a significantly lower responsivity for mothers of infants with cleft lip and palate than for mothers of normal infants. It should be added that the findings of Field and Vega-Lahr refer to 3-month- old children, whereas the findings of Wasserman et al. (1985, 1987)relate to older children, aged 9-24 and 9-12 months, respectively. In agreement with these results, one of our own investigations (Hoeksma et al., 1990), based on the sample used in the present study, revealed that mothers of 1057-35931921030169- 13$11.50 zyxwvut CZ 1992 by John Wile! & Sons, Ltd. Received 29 june 1992 Accepted 20 July 2992