Mother-child interaction has been extensively examined by empirical and theoretical studies. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of data concerning the relationship between mothers and children with chronic conditions.

To test the hypothesis that the chronicity of the illness would have an adverse effect on the mother-child relationship for the asthmatic and chronic heart disease groups compared to the healthy children.

A factorial design was used, with three levels of child health status (asthmatic, congenital heart disease and healthy) and a sequence of three interaction episodes as the within-group factor (mother-child-1, stranger-child, and mother-child-2).The coding procedure used was the Response Class Matrix. It has been used extensively in the study of mother-child interaction

There were significant differences in the mutual interaction between mothers and the asthmatic child compared to the heart disease and healthy groups. Mothers of the asthmatic group were significantly more directive of their child in play compared to the other groups. There were no differences among the three groups of children when interacting with the stranger.

The findings suggest that there are specific dynamics associated with asthmatic child-mother dyads.