Care giver interactions

• Caregiver-Infant Interactions


  Interactions between a caregiver & infant serve to develop & maintain a communication and attachment between them
• How each caregiver-infant pair interacts is crucial for infants future development
• Two features of caregiver-infant interactions

  • Reciprocity: turn taking during an interaction
  • Interactional synchrony: interactions and emotions between caregiver and infant 'mirror' each other
• Reciprocity


  Turn taking during an interaction, where infants send out 'alert phases' through their facial or vocal expressions signalling they are ready for interaction, which the caregiver picks up on and responds accordingly
• Interactional synchrony


  Interactions and emotions between caregiver and infant are co-ordinated, simultaneous and imitated. The infant and caregiver act as if they are one person.
• Research investigating caregiver-infant interactions (Meltzoff & Moore 1977)

  1. Aim: To investigate interactional synchrony

  2. Procedure: Researcher sat in front of 12-21 day-old infants producing facial expressions and movements, which were videotaped and observed by independent observers

  3. Findings: Infants imitated the adults facial expressions & hand movements, even at 3 days old

  4. Conclusion: Inter-rater reliability between observers was 0.92
• Interactions become more frequent around 3 months, when babies are the most active for interaction. This process assists child development by helping them feel a sense of connection and communication with their caregiver.
• EVALUATION ✅ Research studies showing reciprocity and interactional synchrony

  • The still face experiment where a mother & daughter were seen interacting but then the mother stopped, and the infant was still moving to get that interaction and connection back eventually becoming distressed. Illustrating how the infants behaviour is highly reliant on their primary caregiver and they are able to imitate and mirror from a young age
• EVALUATION ❌There are problems with testing and observing infants' behaviour

  There is reason to have some doubt about the findings of research studies such as Meltzoff and Moore's because of the difficulties in reliably testing infant behaviour. Because infants are constantly moving their mouthed therefore it is difficult to distinguish between general activity and imated behaviour. it is not reliable and can’t be generalised.