First Sounds and First Steps
Maternal depression has been known to adversely affect the mother-infant interaction, maternal sensitivity, and subsequent infant developmental and attachment outcomes. However, the effects of maternal anxiety on mother-infant interactions are still inconclusive. In addition, little is known about the impact of maternal depression and anxiety upon infant communicative feedback cues in "real time" mother-infant interactions.
The overall aim of her thesis is to examine the speech of depressed and anxious mothers to determine the effects upon infant attachment and developmental outcomes over time. This has clinical implications regarding early identification of at risk mothers, their infants and focus points for early psychological intervention with the mother-infant dyad.
Researchers
Maria Christou-Ergos (opens in a new window)
Jessica Tan (opens in a new window)
Chief Investigator
Professor Denis Burnham (opens in a new window)
Partner / Funding Body
- Western Sydney University
Human Research Ethics Committee Approval Number: H11703
For more information or to register your interest, please contact:
| Name | Maria Christou-Ergos |
| m.christou-ergos@westernsydney.edu.au | |
| Phone | +61 2 9772 6229 |
Research
- Contingency in infant-directed speech: Neurophysiological and psycho-social responses in pre-linguistic infants
- Culture - Affect
- Effect of Postnatal Depression on Parent-Child Communication
- First Sounds and First Steps
- Functioning Listening Index (FLI)
- Many Babies
- Mummy, why does that lady talk funny?
- Optimising Infant Directed Speech
- Seeds of language development
- Speech adaptation: Neural mechanisms and stimulus information
- Speech Registers
- The role of properties of infant-directed speech on early word learning
- Visual Speech Benefit in Auditory-Visual Speech Perception: Infants, Children, Hearing Impairment
- Digital Infant Directed Speech (DIDS)
- Infants' sensitivity to lexical tone and stress in early speech perception
The Benefits of Multilingualism