Caregiver-infant interactions

• Caregiver-infant interactions


  Meaningful social interactions between babies and their carers
• Caregiver-infant interactions

  • Important functions for the child's social development
  • Associated with the successful development of attachments between babies and their caregiver(s)
• Reciprocity


  An interaction where each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them
• Reciprocal interaction is also sometimes called 'turn-taking'
• Reciprocal interaction is an essential part of any conversation, otherwise people talk over each other
• Alert phases


  Periodic phases where babies signal they are ready for interaction
• Mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby's alertness around two-thirds of the time
• Interaction tends to become increasingly frequent and involves both mother and baby paying close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions from around three months
• Active involvement


  Babies as well as caregivers take an active role in interactions, both can initiate interactions and take turns
• Interactional synchrony


  The temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour where caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other
• Interactional synchrony begins in babies as young as two weeks old
• High levels of interactional synchrony


  Associated with better quality mother-baby attachment