caregiver-infant interactions

• Reciprocity

  A description of how two people interact. Caregiver-infant interaction is reciprocal in that both caregiver and baby respond to each other's signals and each elicits a response from the other.
• Interactional synchrony

  Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a co-ordinated (synchronised) way.
• Attachment

  A close two-way emotional bond between two individuals in which each individual sees the other as essential for their own emotional security. Attachment in humans takes a few months to develop.
• We can recognise an attachment when people display the following behaviours:

  • Proximity
  • Separation distress
  • Secure-base behaviour
• Proximity - people try to stay physically close to their attachment figure
• Separation distress


  Signs of anxiety when an attachment figure leaves their presence
• Secure-base behaviour


  Even when we are independent of our attachment figures we tend to make regular contact with them. Babies display secure-base behaviour when they regularly return to their attachment figure while playing.
• What are alert phases in babies?


  Periodic phases when babies signal readiness for interaction (e.g., making eye contact).