Caregiver-Infant interactions

• caregiver infant interactions


  key interaction: non-verbal communication

  manner in which each responds to other determines formation of attachment - more sensitive each is to other's signals, deeper the relationship
• Reciprocity


  when an infant responds to actions of another person in form of turn-taking

  babies have 'alert phases', which they signal they're ready for a spell of interaction.

  from around 3 months, reciprocity increases in frequency, as infant and caregiver pay increasing attention to each other's verbal and facial communications (Feldman)

  Brazelton et al describe the interaction of babies and caregivers as a 'dance' as when a couple dances they each respond to one another's movements and rhythm
• Interactional Synchrony


  relates to timing and pattern of interaction

  interaction is rhythmic, has a mutual focus and can include infant and caregiver mirroring each other's behaviour and emotions

  mirroring can be referred as imitation

  child will move body or carry out same act as caregiver simultaneously and two are synchronised
• Meltzoff and Moore


  AIM: observe interactional synchrony, in infants as young as 2 weeks old

  METHOD: using controlled observation, adult model displayed one of 3 facial expressions and hand gesture and studied behaviour of response in infants

  baby's response was filmed and labelled by independent observers.

  RESULTS: clear association between the expression of gesture that adult displayed and babies actions.

  later research by Meltzoff and Moore found same findings in 3-day old infants

  CONCLUSION: suggest interactional synchrony is innate and reduced strength of claim that imitative behaviour is learned
• Strength - interactions are usually filmed in a lab

  advantageous -> other activity might distract a baby can be controlled.

  using films suggests observations can be recorded and analysed later. unlikely researchers will miss key behaviours.

  filmed interactions means more than one observer can record data and establish the inter-rate reliability of observations.

  babies don't know they're being observed, so behaviour doesn't change in response to observation.

  data collected should have good reliability and validity from findings generalisable to real life
• Weakness - observing interactions is difficult in explaining behaviour from infant's perspective

  many studies into mother-infant interactions have shown same patterns of behaviour (Gratier)

  what's being observed is hand movement or changes in expression

  hard to be sure, based on observations, what's happening from the infant's perspective.

  e.g. can't know whether a movement such as a hand twist is random or triggered by something the caregiver has done.

  can't be certain that behaviours seen in caregiver-infant interactions have a special meaning.
• Weakness - interactions don't tell us the purpose of synchrony and reciprocity

  Feldman points out synchrony and reciprocity simply describe behaviours that occur at same time.

  robust phenomena in sense they can be easily observed, but still may not be particularly useful in understanding child development as it doesn't tell us the purpose of these behaviours - means we can't be certain observational research alone that reciprocity and synchrony are important for a child's development

  Isabella et al found achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of a good quality attachment - research has shown that reciprocity and interactional synchrony are helpful in stress responses, empathy and language