Further validation of Leerkes’ cry questionnaire battery in an independent sample: Useful tools for infant mental health practitioners and scholars

The purpose of this report is to further validate three measures of maternal responses to infant crying. These are the Infant Crying Questionnaire, which assesses beliefs about infant crying, the My Emotions Questionnaire, which assesses emotional reactions to infant crying, and one subscale of the Maternal Responsiveness Questionnaire which assesses nonresponsiveness to crying. Mother-infant dyads (N = 299) from the United States participated, mothers completed self-reports during the prenatal period, the focal questionnaires when their infants were 2-month, 6-month, and 1-year old, and other relevant questionnaires when their children were 2 years old. Maternal sensitivity was observed during each postnatal wave, mothers reported child behavior problems and social competence, and infant emotion regulation was observed at 1 and 2 years. The proposed factor structures were replicated, and each measure's subscales demonstrated strong internal consistency reliability and stability across waves. Subscales demonstrated convergent validity with one another and maternal characteristics, predictive validity to observed maternal sensitivity and mother-reported emotion socialization, and there was some evidence of predictive validity to child outcomes for select subscales. The utility of these measures within the field of infant mental health is discussed.