Caregiver-Infant Interactions

Question 1

What is infancy?

Answer 1

• the period of a child’s life before speech begins.
• One of the key interactions between caregivers and infants is their nonverbal communication
• Such interactions may form the basis of attachment between an infant and caregiver.
  -The more sensitive each is to the other’s signals, the deeper the relationship.

Question 2

What is reciprocity?

Answer 2

The term reciprocity refers to a two-way interaction between the caregiver and the child, referred to
as turn-taking and mirroring. Parents and babies develop a finely tuned, shared sense of timing,
which develops into a flow of mutual behaviours. e.g. a baby smiling back when a caregiver smiles at them.

Question 3

What is interactional syncrony?

Answer 3

• Interactional synchrony is a simultaneous co-ordinated sequence of movements, communication, emotions.
  -It refers to how a parent’s speech and infant’s behaviour become finely synchronised so that they are in direct response to one another.
• It was defined by Feldman (2007) as a “temporal coordination of micro-level social behaviour” and as “symbolic exchanges between parent and
  child”.
  -Feldman suggests that interactional synchrony serves a critical role in developmental outcomes in terms of self-regulation, symbol use, and the capacity for empathy.

Question 4

A03 - Isabella and Belsky - Interactional Synchrony

Answer 4

-Isabella and Belsky (1991) hypothesised that caregiver-baby pairs that developed secure attachment relationships would display more synchronous behaviour than babies with insecure relationships.
-Babies were observed at 3 and 9 months and the secure group interacted in a well-timed, reciprocal, and mutually rewarding manner.

-In contrast, caregiver-baby pairs classed as insecure were
characterized by interactions that were minimally involved, unresponsive and intrusive.

-Avoidant pairs displayed maternal intrusiveness and overstimulation
-while resistant pairs were poorly coordinated, under-involved and inconsistent.

-Isabella and Belsky concluded that different interactional behaviours predicted attachment quality.

Question 5

A03 - Belsky - Reciprocity

Answer 5

• Some research suggests that quality of reciprocity in infancy is associated with later attachment type.
• Belsky et al found that infants securely attached at 12 months had been involved in a middle amount of reciprocity.

-Those with a low level of reciprocity tended to have insecure
resistant attachment.

-Those who had the highest levels of reciprocity had insecure avoidant attachment.

• Belsky argues that a middle level of reciprocity may indicate a caregiver who is sensitive to the infant but does not press the infant to interact when they need to take a break from stimulation.
• This suggests the importance of understanding reciprocity and may provide a basis to support effective parenting.
• However, the correlation between parental behaviours and
  later infant attachment types does not necessarily indicate a causal relationship.