1. Caregiver and infant interactions

• What is meant by attachment ?

  - The emotional bond between two people that takes place over time.

  - It comes from feeling secure protected by someone.
• Proximity and it's effect on attachment

  - People try to stay close to those they feel attached to.

  - Often struggling to be away from each other for prolonged periods.
• Separation distress and its effect on attachment


  People feel distressed and uncomfortable when they aren't in the presence of their attached figure.
• Secure base behaviour


  - In the relationship between caregiver and infant rely on one another for constant reassurance so they make regular contact.
• Caregiver


  - Someone who provides care for another individual.
• Infant


  - A child between the ages of 0-1.
• Two types of caregiver and infant interactions

  - reciprocity

  - interactional synchrony
• Reciprocity


  - Both an infant and a caregiver are interacting with two way exchanges.

  - One makes a signal or action and the other responds.
• Interactional synchrony


  - The infant not only responds to the caregivers actions but mirrors them.

  - Two people carrying out the same corroded action simultaneously.
• Research to support reciprocity

  - Brazleton et al. (1975) described these interaction as a 'dance' because each partner responds to each other's moves.

  
  

  - Feldman and Eidelman (2007) found that Mothers typically pick up on and respond to infant alertness around two-thirds of the time
• Isabella et al's research


  - She observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony whilst also looking at the quality of mother-infant attachment.

  - They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-infant attachment.
• Research into interactional synchrony

  - Meltzoff and Moore (1977)

  - Looked at interactional synchrony in two week old babies

  - There was a significant association between the mothers actions and the babies mirroring
• Filmed observations - A03

  - These mother-infant interactions are generally controlled procedures filled from multiple angles.

  - Babies also lack interest in the fact that they are being filmed and so this reduces the likelihood of demand characteristics and social desirability bias.

  - Allows for behaviour to be analysed later

  - Allows for the it to be observed by more than one researcher - establishes inter rater reliability

  - Data and insights provided by this has good reliability and decent overall validity
• Establishing the importance of certain behaviours - AO3

  - There is a difficulty observing babies behaviours

  - As babies mouths are in fairly constant motion so it can be hard to study their behaviour.

  - This makes it hard to distinguish between general activity and specific behaviours.

  - For example its hard to tell if if baby is smiling or just passing

  - And so we can't assume that these interactions are deliberate and so have specific/ special meaning
• Developmental importance - AO3

  - Observing the behaviour of babies in these later years doesn't tell us its importance in their later development

  - Feldman points out that synchrony and reciprocity simply point out behaviour's that occur at the same time.

  - But it doesn't tell us their purpose so they aren't particularly useful.

  - There is little information on the purpose of these behaviours and how they relate to a child's development
• Interactions as children may be important to later development - AO3

  - There is evidence that reciprocity and IS are helpful in the development of mother - infant attachments

  - Back to Isabela et al who found that good interactional synchrony provided a decent foundation and showed good quality attachments