caregiver - infant interactions

• Reciprocity


  When a baby moves in rhythm with a caregiver. They respond to each other's signals.
• Brazleton (1975): 'Mother infant interactions are like a 'dance' as each partner responds to each other's moves'
• Feldman (2007)


  Babies have alert phases where they signal that they're ready for interaction. This becomes frequent and it involves mother and baby paying attention to each other's signals and expressions.
• Interactional synchrony


  When a baby imitates the actions of a caregiver at the same time. They are in sync.
• Meltzoff and Moore (1977) study of interactional synchrony


  1. Used adult model who displayed expressions

  2. Saw if baby would replicate these once dummy was removed

  3. Found association between infant behaviour and adult model
• Securely attached mother-infant pairs

  Showed more instances of interactional synchrony in the first year of life
• Interactional synchrony is important for the development of caregiver-infant interaction
• There are some variations between infants that affect interactional synchrony
• One weakness is that it is difficult to distinguish between general activity and imitated behaviour  Infant’s mouths  are constantly moving and expressions that are tested occur frequently 
• There are some variations between infants that affect interactional synchrony. Isabella at al(1989) found that infants that were more strongly attached  to the caregiver showed greater interactional synchrony
• In Schafer and Emersons research, most of the observations were carried out by the parents of the babies which gives the study good external validity and eliminates any chance of the observer effect invalidating the findings