Caregiver infant interactions

• Infant-caregiver interaction refers to the communication between the two parties that occurs through facial expressions, body language, vocalizations, touch, and other nonverbal cues.
• Caregivers are responsible for providing food, shelter, warmth, protection, comfort, stimulation, and socialization to infants.
• The caregiver's behavior is the most important factor influencing an infant's development.
• The quality of caregiver-infant interaction is important because it can influence an infant's developmental outcomes.
• Insecure attachments occur when there is inconsistent responsiveness from the caregiver, leading to anxiety and avoidance behaviors in the child.
• Responsive caregiving involves being sensitive to an infant's needs and responding appropriately, which promotes secure attachment and positive developmental outcomes.
• Positive caregiver-infant interactions promote healthy brain development, while negative interactions may lead to delays or disruptions in cognitive, emotional, and physical growth.
• Sensitive caregiving promotes healthy brain development by meeting the baby's basic physical and emotional needs.
• Sensitive and responsive caregiving involves being aware of the baby’s needs and responding appropriately, which helps build trust and confidence in the child.
• Sensitive and responsive caregiving involves being aware of the baby’s needs and responding appropriately, which helps build trust and confidence in the child.
• Responsiveness involves being sensitive to the baby's needs and responding appropriately.
• Attachment is defined as "an affectional bond linking one person to another" (Ainsworth & Bell, 1974).
• A responsive caregiver provides consistent attention, affection, and support to their child.
• Bowlby (1960) proposed attachment theory as a way to explain how children form attachments with their primary caregivers.
• Caregivers who are sensitive and responsive to their infants tend to have children with better cognitive, social, emotional, and physical health outcomes than those whose caregivers were less attuned or unresponsive.
• The quality of care provided by parents or primary caregivers can have long-lasting effects on an individual's development.
• Reciprocity is when each party responds to the and elicits a response back from them e.g. a baby smiles, the caregiver says something back to the baby and the baby responds back to the caregiver. This is also known as turn taking
• Babies have periodic 'alert phases' where the baby signals they are ready to interact
• Interactional synchrony is where the caregiver and baby reflect the actions of eachother in a coordinated way
• Strength

  Filmed observations so higher inter-rater reliability as less chance of something being missed and can be rewatched later.

  Good reliability and validity
• Weakness

  It's hard to interpret babies behaviour as they have a lack of coordination due to being almost immobile. Movements being observed are small hand movements or changes in expressions. Hard to determine what's happening from the babies perspective.

  Cannot be certain that's what's being observed it's due to caregiver-infant interaction or has a special meaning
• Strength

  Babies don't know they're being watched so low chance of demand characteristics High reliability and validity
• Limitation

  Observing behaviour doesn't tell us developmental importance. Ruth Feldman (2012): ideas like synchrony gives names to patterns. Can be reliably observed but not useful in understanding child development as it doesn't tell us the purpose of these behaviours.

  Cannot be certain the ideas that reciprocity and synchrony are important to a child's development