Caregiver-infant Interactions

• Reprocity - A description of how two people interact. Caregiver infant interaction is reciprocal in that both caregiver and infant respond to each others signals and elicits a response from another.
• Interactional Synchrony - Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in a coordinated way.
• Babies have alert phases in which they signal that they are ready for a spell of interaction. Research shows that mothers typically pick up and respond to their babies alertness.
• Both baby and caregiver can initiate reactions
• Two people are synchronised when they carry out the same action simultaneously.
• Brazelton described reprocity as like a dace because it is just like a couple's dance where each partner responds the others moves.
• Interactional synchrony can be defined as 'the temporal coordination of micro-level social behaviour' by Feldman
• Meltzoff and Moore observed yje beginning of interactional synchrony in babies as young as 2 weeks old - Babies copiedd facial expressions of parents.
• Isabella et al observed 30 mothers and babies and assessed the degree of synchrony. High levels of synchrony suggested better quality attachment.