The research reported here is an analysis of selected factors associated with the positive and negative perceptions of mothers toward their infants at one month. The data were collected as part of the larger evaluation of the Perinatal Positive Parenting program. In addition to the treatment or control status of the mother, age of mother, birth weight of the infant, one-minute APGAR score, and opportunity for mother-infant physical contact in thedelivery room were included in the analyses. Significant differences were found for the APGAR score groups. A backward elimination regression technique found APGAR score, birth weight, and age of mother to be predictive of maternal perceptions.
The ability to accurately predict child outcomes during infancy would greatly enhance efforts by professionals to help assure the optimal growth and development of every individual. Unfortunately, the state of the art does not yet allow for such projections. Lewis and Fox (1980) point out that there are at least two reasons why developmental tests in infancy cannot yield such results. "Part of the explanation resides in the make-up of the tests, what skills they attempt to tap and how these skills change with time. Part of the explanation resides in the fallacy of expecting that future performance can be predicted from measures of infant status alone" (p. 53).
This statement suggests why much of the current research on infancy has focused not only upon the growth and development of the infant but also upon the environmental factors which affect the young infant in the home (Caldwell and Herser, 1964) and on the kind and quality of caregiving behavior (mainly maternal behavior) which the infant receives. Schaffer (1977) and Lewis and Rosenblum (1978, 1974) have explored extensively the