Le rôle de l'évaluation des interactions lors du repas dans l'évaluation psychopathologique usuelle du jeune enfant

The early parent-child relationship is a major target of both the assessment and the intervention processes done by infant mental health clinicians. Early relationships are evaluated through the observation of the parent-infant interactions. Such observations typically take place in the setting of a play session. Feeding interaction is usually observed only in the cases of infants referred to the clinic because of a feeding problem. Our study tested the hypothesis that feeding interaction elicits different patterns of parent-infant interactions, in nature as well as in intensity, regardless of their clinical status. We compared 30 referred with 30 matched (for age, sex, birth order and origin) non-referred motherinfant dyads interactions during play and feeding videotaped sessions at home. Referred dyads were diagnosed with the DC:0-3 classification, independently of the blind coding of their interactions. The referred dyads had less optimal interactions than the referred group during both play and feeding. Feeding elicited more negative interactions than play, regardless of the infant's clinical diagnostic, and infant withdrawal behaviour was elicited only by the feeding situation. We conclude with the suggestion to include observation of the feeding interaction in the routine clinical evaluation of the infant and parents, regardless of the reason for referral.