Care-giver interactions

• what the definition of attachment?

  an emotional , enduring , two-way bond/relationship between an infant and their care-giver
• what is so important about caregiver-infant interactions?

  they have important functions for the child's social development , in particular good quality social interactions earlier on are associated with successful development of attachments btwn babies and their care-givers
• what is reciprocity?

  a type of interaction btwn care-giver and child in which both individuals respond to each other's actions with mutual responsiveness and elicit responses from each other (+ known as 'turn-taking' )
• what is interactional synchrony?

  a type of interaction btwn child and primary care-giver where they both mirror each others actions simultaneously
• Strength: Caregiver - infant interactions

  P - reliability

  E - usually filmed in a laboratory which is controlled

  E - study less likely to be affected by extraneous variables such as background noise which can distract the babies; observations can be recorded and analysed later by more than one observer to establish inter-rater reliability of observations

  L - data collected in such research should have high validity/reliability as its more likely to be accurate
• Limitation: Research of Caregiver - infant interactions

  P - difficult to interpret baby's behaviour

  E - e.g hard to be sure if a baby's smiling or passing wind or a movement such as a hand twitch is due to sum random or a result of the care-giver's actions

  E - these movements are just subtle changes in expression and small movements that may not mean anything signif as babies lack co-ord and most their bodies = immobile

  L - cannot be certain that the behaviours seen have a spec meaning
• what are alert phases?

  when babies have periodic time in which they signal that they are ready for a spell of interaction research shows:

  • mothers tend to pick up alert phases 2/3 of time
  • although can be varied to the mother's skill and external factors e.g stress
  • around 3m interaction tends to become increasingly frequent and involves both mother + baby paying close attention to each other's verbal signals
• when does synchrony typically begin?

  as young as 2 weeks old when an adult displays 1 of 3 facial expressions or distinctive gestures the baby would be more likely to mirror these (more of a significant association than chance)
• what is the relationship between attachment and synchrony ?

  research by Isabella et al shows high levels of synchrony = better quality baby-mother attachment