Caregiver-infant interactions

• what do newborn babies have?

  'alert phases'.
• newborn babies have alert phases

  from birth, babies and their mothers (or other carers) spend a lot of time in intense and pleasurable interaction.

  babies have periodic 'alert phases' and signal they are ready for interaction, which mothers responds to around two-thirds of the time.
• what can interactional synchrony be defined as?

  the coordination of micro-level behaviour- feldman
• interactional synchrony = mirroring

  two people are said to be 'synchronised' when they carry out the same action simultaneously.

  it takes place when mother and infant interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other.
• meltzof and Moore observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in infants as young as two weeks old.

  an adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures and the child's response was filmed.

  an association was found between the expression/gesture and the action of the child.
• synchrony provides the necessary foundation for the mother and infant connection which can be build upon in subsequent years.
• Isabella et al. observed 30 mothers and infants together and assessed the degree of synchrony and the quality of mother-infant attachment.

  the researchers found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality of mother infant attachment (e.g. the emotional intensity of the relationship).
• higher synchrony= higher quality attachment.
• reciprocity- one person responds to the other.
• from around three months reciprocal interaction tends to be increasingly frequent, when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them.

  it involves close attention to each other's verbal signals and facial expressions.

  brazleton et al. described this interaction as a 'dance' because it is just like a couple's dance where each partner responds to each other's moves.
• traditional views of childhood have seen the baby in a passive role, receiving care from the adult. however, it seems that the baby takes an active role. both mother and child can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so.
• strength of the research: uses well-controlled procedures

  mother-infant interactions are usually filmed, often from multiple angles. very fine details of behaviour can be recorded and analysed later. also babies don't know they are being observed, so their behaviour does not change in response to observation (generally the main problem for observation research). this is a strength of this line of research because it means the studies have good validity.
• limitation: hard to know what is happening when observing infants

  many studies into mother-infant interactions have shown the same patterns of behaviour. however, what is being observed is merely hand movements or changes in expression. it is difficult to be sure, based on these observations, what is taking place from the infant's perspective. For example, is the infants imitation of adult signals conscious and deliberate? this means we cannot be certain that behaviours seen in mother-infant interactions have a special meaning.
• limitation of research into mother-infant interactions: socially sensitive

  this is because it suggests that children may be disadvantaged by particular child-rearing practices. specifically, mothers who return to work shortly after a child is born restrict the opportunities for achieving interactional synchrony. this suggests that mothers should not return to work so soon- this has obvious socially sensitive implications.
• limitation: observations don't tell us the purpose of synchrony or reciprocity

  Feldman points out that synchrony (and by implication reciprocity) simply describe behaviours that occur at the same time. they are robust phenomena in the sense that they can be reliably observed, but this may not be particularly useful as it does not tell us their purpose. however, there is some evidence that reciprocity and synchrony are helpful in the development of mother-infant attachment, stress responses, empathy, language and moral development