PPT Slide
Persistent crying has often been cited as a predictor of child abuse. However, only a small percentage of persistent criers is abused. It is likely that parental interpretations of aversive behaviors, rather than the simple amount of crying, is a major factor in abuse (Murray, 1979). Experts view early crying as unintentional and reflective of physiological states (Barr, 2000), but parents typically ascribe intentionality to their infant's behavior from birth (Gustafson & Deconti, 1990). One purpose of this study was to explore parental perceptions of intentionality to better understand beliefs that may mediate caregiving strategies.
Middle-class parents of 8 healthy newborns (4 female, 4 male) agreed to participate in a grounded theory study of infant crying. Parents were interviewed three times when their infants were between 2 weeks and 3 months of age. Parents also completed 24-hour diaries of crying, sleeping, and feeding patterns before each interview. Interviews included open-ended questions regarding crying and other communicative behavior. Transcripts of interviews were coded using NVivo software for analyzing qualitative data. When the babies were 3 months of age, parents completed the Carey Infant Temperament Scale (1968) and the Feldman and Resnick (1996) Infant Intentionality Interview.