Caregiver Infant Interactions Flashcards
Outline and Evaluation of Caregiver Infant Interactions
What is infancy
The developmental stage before speaking
What is reciprocity
Where infants coordinte their actions with caregivers, forming almost a conversation. Babies move into a rhythm as if they were taking turns communicating
Who claimed that reciprocity is a precursor to later communication
Brazelton
What function does reciprocity serve?
Precursor to later communication and it allows a caregiver to anticipate the infants actions and respond appropriately. The sensitivity also lays foundation for later attachment
What are the two forms of infant caregiver interaction
Reciprocity and Interactional Synchrony
What is interactional synchrony?
Where an infant mirrors the actions of another person, usually the caregiver
Who discovered interactional synchrony?
Meltzoff and Moore
Who suggested that interactional synchrony was the result of operant conditioning?
Jean Piaget
Why might interactional synchrony be the result of operant conditioning
A child may learn that a caregiver smiles if they copy their movements, which is rewarding
What did Murray and Trevarthen do?
Conducted the interactional synchrony study with caregiver recorded and interacting through a screen
Who conducted a study with the caregiver interacting with the infant through a screen
Murray and Trevarthen
What did Murray and Trevarthen find?
The infant was distressed by the lack of interest from the recorded mother, and turned away. Showed that the infant was actively eliciting response, and an active partner in interactional synchrony
How did Meltzoff and Moore try to ensure infant behaviour was a response and not random
Had infants filmed and had an observer who didn’t know they were imitating judge the behaviour
What has been an issue with Meltzoff and Moore’s research
It has been difficult to replicate
Who attempted Meltzoff and Moore’s research but failed to replicate the findings
Koepke et al
Who attempted to replicate Murray and Trevarthen’s study and what did they find
Marian et al, they found that infants couldn’t distinguish between videotaped interactions and live ones with their mothers
What did Marian et al’s study suggest
That infants in Murray and Trevarthen’s study were not actually responding to the adult
How do different attachment types impact infant interaction
Securely attached infants showed greater interational synchrony
Who found the correlation between strong attachment and greater interactional synchrony
Isabella et al
Who found that infants who demonstrate more imitation at birth have a better quality of relationship in three months
Heimann
Is attachment type a cause or effect of early synchrony
It is unclear
Why is it important to understand early interaction
Meltzoff developed the ‘like me’ hypothesis, which suggested that children apply their own mental state to interactions, beggining the ‘theory of mind’
