caregiver-infant interactions Flashcards
reciprocity
from birth babies and mothers (caregivers) spend a lot of time in intense and highly pleasurable interaction
interaction is said to show reciprocity when each person responds to the other and elicits a response from them
can also be called turn taking
alert phases
babies have periodic alert phases
they signal that they are ready for interaction - eye contact
mothers typically pick up on this and respond to their baby’s alertness two thirds. of the time (feldman and eidelman)
although this can vary according to the skill of the mother and external factors such as stress (Finegood)
From around three months this interaction tends to be increasingly frequent
involves both mother and baby paying close attention to each others verbal signals and facial expressions (Feldman)
active involvement
babies as well as care givers take an active role
both caregiver and baby can initiate interactions and they appear to take turns doing so
Interactional synchrony
the temporal co-ordination of micro-level social behaviour - Feldman
when a caregiver and baby interact in such a way that their actions and emotions mirror each other
Synchrony begins
Meltzoff and Moore - observed the beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies as young as two weeks old
adult displayed one of three facial expressions or one of three distinctive gestures
baby’s response was filmed and labelled by independent observers
babies expression and gestures were more likely to mirror those of adults more than chance would predict
importance for attatchment
Isabella et al - observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed the degree of synchrony
the researchers also assessed the quality of mother-baby attachment
high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother-baby attachment
strength
filmed observations
usually filmed in a laboratory
means other activity that might distract a baby can be controlled
using films means that researchers can be recorded and analysed later
means that it is unlikely that researchers will miss seeing key behaviours
means that more than one observer can record data and establish inter-rater reliability of observations
babies don’t know that they’re being observed so their behaviour does not change in response to observation
good reliability and validity
limitation
difficulty observing babies
hard to interpret a baby’s behaviour
lack co-ordination and much of their bodies are almost immobile
moments being observed are small hand movements or subtle changes in expression
difficult to be sure on what the changes mean
difficult to determine what is taking place from the baby’s perspective
cannot be certain that the behaviours seen in caregiver infant interactions have a special meaning
limitation
developmental importance
simply observing a behaviour does not tell us its ddevloepmental importance
Feldman - points put that ideas like synchrony imply give names to patterns of observable caregiver and baby behaviours
Robust phenomena in the sense that they can be reliably observed
but they still may not be particularly useful in understanding child development as it does nt tell us the purpose of these behaviours
we cannot be certain from observational research alone that repricory and synchrony are important for a child’s development
