Caregiver - infant interactions

• What is attachment? 


  • Emotional bond between two people.
  • A two-way process that endures over time.
  • Each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security.
  • Attachment in humans takes a few months to develop.
  • It leads to behaviours such as clinging (separation distress) and proximity seeking, and serves the function of protecting an infant (secure base)
• What is meant by reciprocity? 


  • Taking turns and responding.
  • This will elicit a response from the other
  • doesn't necessarily mean responding with the same behaviours.
  • Two way
• What is meant by interactional synchrony? 


  • Infant and caregiver mirror each other e.g imitate the same behaviours in a synchronised way (in time with each other)
  • Move in time with each other e.g. both turn heads at same time/both smile at the same time
• Reciprocity, interactional synchrony and alert phases simple definitions. 


  • Alert phases- from briths babies signal when they are ready to interact
  • Reciprocity- caregiver - infant interactions are reciprocal, each person’s interactions affect the other
  • Interactional synchrony - caregiver and infant signals synchronise (they occur together)