Caregiver Infant Interactions Flashcards
Interactional synchrony
When the caregiver and the baby reflect the actions and emotions of the other and do so in a co-ordinated way.
Reciprocity
When the reaction of one partner elicits a response from the other.
Important as it teaches the child to communicate and allows the parent to better care for the child as they can detect certain cues and respond to their needs more efficiently and effectively.
Sensitive responsiveness
Adult attends sensitively to infant’s communication.
Alert phase
When babies signal that they are ready for interaction.
Meltzoff and Moore - interactional synchrony
-Found that infants as young as 2 weeks imitated specific facial and hand gestures.
-Study conducted using an adult model who displayed facial expressions or hand movements.
-Found an association between the infant’s behaviour and that of the adult model.
-In a later study, the same synchrony was demonstrated with infants who were only 3 days old.
Give one strength of reciprocity and interactional synchrony
Most of the studies used controlled environments.
-Brazleton et al ,for example, filmed the interactions with the baby from different angles when investigating reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
-Therefore there is a high level of detail and accuracy in these studies and valid conclusions can be drawn.
Give a limitation of reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
We do not know whether actions are meaningful.
-Children as young as two weeks have little or no motor coordination.Infant’s mouths are in fairly constant motion and the expressions that are tested occur frequently. This makes it difficult to distinguish between general activity and specific imitated movements.
Give another strength of reciprocity and interactional synchrony.
Practical application.
-Crotwell et al found that 10 minutes of PCIT training (parent-child interaction therapy), improved interactional synchrony in 20 mother-baby pairs.
-Interactional synchrony has been associated with a better quality mother-baby attachment. This will later influence the quality of the baby’s future relationships due to the internal working model.
-Therefore parents can be trained on how to form a better quality attachment with their child which will later have a positive impact on the quality of attachments the baby makes.
