caregiver infant interactions

• reciprocity = turn taking
• alert phase = babies signal that they're ready for some interaction

  
  

  -picked up on 2/3 of time
• active involvement: babies and adults take up active role

  both initiate interactions and take turns
• interactional synchrony= temporal coordination of micro level social behaviour (mirroring)
• meltzoff and moore- babies as young as 2 weeks old can mirror caregivers interactions
• isabella- observed 30 mothers and babies, assessing their degree of synchrony

  
  

  -found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother baby attachments
• A03-filmed observations? (+)

  • usually filmed in a laboratory- distractions controlled
  • observations can be recorded + analysed later (unlikely to miss key behaviour)
  • established inter rater reliability
  • good reliability and validity
• A03-difficulty observing babies?

  • hard to interpret a babies behaviour -> movements observed are small hard movements/subtle changes
  • difficult to determine what is taking place from babies perspective
  • cant be certain that a babies behaviour has special meaning
• A03-developmental importance?


  • doesn't tell us developmental purpose -> simply give names to patterns of behaviours
  • doesn't tell us purpose of behaviour
  • lowers validity

  HOWEVER:

  • suggests early interactions are important
  • found that achievement of interactional synchrony predicted the development of good quality attachment
  • on balance, caregiver infant interaction is probably important in development