Caregiver-Infant interactions in Humans

The caregiver-infant interactions in humans - Intro and traditional thoughts

Traditionally its thought that in childhood the baby took a passive role however research shows that a baby is very active and that parent child interactions are like a “dance”. It is in these early social interactions that are so important for a child’s social development though their life.

What are the two types of caregiver-infant interaction

1. Reciprocity - any type of behavior that is produced as a response to the other person´s behavior. Its always two-way like a conversation but often without words between the infant and caregiver. So they are both active contributors in the interaction and are responding to each other

2. Interactional Synchrony - Any interaction that has interactional synchrony is also reciprocal so its a two way interaction. However IS tells us about the quality of that interaction.

   Here the interaction is:

   • rhythmic

   • has a mutual focus

   • can include infant and caregiver mirroring each others behavior and emotions

   • synchronized movement

   • moving in the same or similar pattern

The concepts do overlap however you must be able to determine each separately. The difference between them is reciprocity is soley about turn taking whilst synchronicity is a richer and broader concept and is about being in tune with each other so is more about emotion over behavior.

Explain the research into caregiver-infant interaction

MELTZOFF AND MOORE

Procedure

• They carried out an observation on babies as young as 2 weeks old

• adults displayed one of three facial expressions and a had gestured including these behavior categories of mouth opening termination of mouth opening, tongue protrusion, termination of touch protrusion

• The childs response was filmed and identified by independent observers who had no knowledge of what the children had seen.

• The observers scored each the tapes twice so that inter-observer reliability would be calculated. All scores were greater than 0.92.

• Another study was done on a baby as young as 42 minutes

Results - An association was found between the expression or gesture the adult displayed and the babies action

Conclusion - Reciprocity exists at a very young age due to this research, this suggests that it may be an innate characteristic.

Explain the research into caregiver-infant interaction - interactional synchrony

ISABELLA ET AL

Aim - To show that level of interactional synchrony can predict the attachment type

Procedure

• observed mother-infant interactions at 3 and 9 months

• at 12 months she assessed the quality of their attachments using the strange situation

results - Good interactional synchrony (well timed, reciprocal and mutually rewarding) lead to secure attachments. Minimally involved mothers who were unresponsive (low IS) or intrusive or over stimulating (high IS) led to insecure attachment.

This means that interactional synchrony is a big predictor of the attachment type of secure and healthy and research is starting to focus in on this rather than reciprocity. Also its not as simple as saying reciprocity means that the infant and caregiver have a secure attachment as an overstimulating caregiver also leads to an insecure attachment.

give the evaluation of meltzoff and moores method

• independent observes has no knowledge of what the children has seen to reduce demand characteristics

• each observer scored the tapes twice to improve reliability

• inter-rater reliability was high at 92% and 80% is needed for the conclusion to be drawn

• it was filmed from different angles to improve internal validity.

Give one evaluation point of caregiver-infant interactions

THE CONTROLLED OVERSATIONS GIVE THE RESEARCH STRENGTH

These controlled observations are often filmed from multiple angles, recorded with indepent researchers observing the behavior and the babies don´t know or care they are being observed

This ensures that every fine details of behavior can be recorded and when the films are viewed multiple times it is evident that the babies results aren´t effected by their response to being observed

This means that the findings are valid and so the concepts of IS and reciprocity are also valid. Inter relaibilty is also high at 0.92 showing the reliability of the observers.

Give one evaluation point of caregiver-infant interactions

MELTOZOFF AND MOORES RESEARCH LACKS RELIABILITY AND HAS LIMITED USEFULNESS IN THE RESEARCH

Research like KOEPKE et al have found that their results aren´t replicates of MELTZOFF AND MOORES study as Koepke didn´t find a clear association between infant and adult behaviors.

Also MARIAN et al found that infants could not distinguish between live and videotaped interactions with their mothers suggesting they weren´t actaully responding to the caregiver

Give one evaluation point of caregiver-infant interactions

MELTZOFFS AND MOORES RESEARCH

Give one evaluation point of caregiver-infant interactions

THERE ARE DEBATES TO WHETHER THE RESEARCH INTO CAREGIVER-INFANT INTERACTIONS IS SOCIALLY SENSTIVE

Intereational synchrony suggests that in order for secure and strong attachments to be formed then the mother needs to be present from birth in order to develop this sensitive responsiveness to the child

Children whose mothers return to work soon after their birth restrict their opportunities for achieving IS