Verbal behaviors are important indicators
of maternal attachment and may
provide clues to a mother's early psychological
relationship to her infant. In
verbalizing to infants, the mothers identify
the infant as their own and are clarifying
their emerging feelings for the infant.
The mothers relate the infant's appearance
and behavior to people and things
that are familiar and have meaning for
them. They interpret what the behavior
and characteristic mean and will mean as
witnessed in this study. Most frequently,
mothers make comments on infants' features
or physical characteristics. However,
this is different from previous research^*^
in which mothers identified the characteristics
of the infant that were similar to
those of other family members or their
own.