caregiver - infant interactions

What is reciprocity?

Reciprocity is when each person responds to the other and elicits ( draws out) a response from them

For example: a caregiver might respond to their baby’s smile by saying something and then this draws out a response from the baby

This is sometimes called ‘turn taking’. It is an essential part of any conversation, otherwise people would talk over eachother

How does synchrony begin?

Meltzoff and Moore observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as two weeks old. An adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinct gestures

The baby’s response l was filmed and labelled by independent observers. Babies expression and gestures were more likely to mirror those of the adults more than chance would predict

Importance for attachment

It is believed that interaction synchrony is important for the development of caregiver infant attachment

Russell Isabella et al observed 30 mothers and babies together an assessed the degree of synchrony. The researchers also assessed the quality of the mother baby attachment. They found that high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother - bat attachment

What are alert phases?

Babies have periodic ‘alert phases’ in which they signal (eg: making eye contact ) which then triggers interactions

Research shows mothers typically pick up on and respond to their baby’s alertness around two thirds of the time(fieldman and eidelman)

Although finegood et al believes this varies according to the skills of the mother and external factors such as stress. From around 3 months this interaction tends to become increasingly frequent and involved not mother and baby playing close attention to each others verbal signals and facial expressions

What is active involvement?

Traditional views of childhood have portrayed babies in a passive role, recurving care from an adult. However it seems that babies as well as caregivers actually take quite an active role.

Both caregivers and baby can intimate interactions and they appear to take turns in doing so

Brazelton describes this interaction as a ‘dance’ because it is just like a couples dance where each partner responds to the other persons moves

Why is interactional synchrony

Two people are said to be ‘synchronised’ when they carry out the same action simultaneously interactional synchrony can be defined as ‘the temporal condition of micro level social behaviour’ (Feldman)

It takes place when caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror the other

Difficulty observing babies

P. One limitation is it is difficult to observe babies

E. It is difficult to tell to be sure if a baby is doing something due to different interpretations for example if a baby is smiling or passing wind

E. We cannot know whether a movement such as a hand twitch is random or triggered by something the caregiver has done

L. We cannot be certain that bvr seen in caregiver infant interactions have a special meaning

Filmed observation

P. A strength is that it is a filmed observation

E. Activity that might distract a baby can be controlled unlikely the researchers will miss seeing key bvrs because it is research

E. Having filmed interactions means more the observer can record data and establish the inter rate reliability of observation

L. Therefore data collection in such research should have good validity and reliability