Social skill in self-assertive strategies of toddlers with depressed and nondepressed mothers.

The authors examined the effects of maternal depression on the skillfulness of toddlers' self-assertive strategies in interactions with their mother and with a female examiner. The participants were 110 mothers and their 26-month-old toddlers. Of these mothers, 57 had experienced an episode of clinical depression sometime since their child's birth, and 53 had had no history of depression.