PIMENTEL, Júlia Serpa. Um bebé diferente . []. , 16, 1, pp.49-64. ISSN 0870-8231.

The paper begins with a brief overview on the recent works on mother-infant interaction and on other studies analysing the influence of maternal attitudes, feelings and expectations on the interactive process with their infants. We present a longitudinal study with twelve diads, during the first year of life: four mothers and their normal infants, three mothers and their pre-term babies and five mothers and their Down Syndrome infants. We enphasise the specific characteristics of each diad in all the aspects we have studied - infant development, mother-infant interaction, maternal feelings and mother-infant adaptation process. We believe that the individual analysis of these aspects is of enormous importance for the devellopment of early intervention programs for infants and children with special needs and their families.

: Mother-infant interaction; Down syndrome; early intervention.

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