Caregiver-infant interactions

Caregiver-infant interactions

1. Reciprocity

   • One person responds to the other with a similar response, can be actions or emotional
   • Brazelton describes synchrony as a dance, a rhythm
   • Feldman and eidelman
     • Believe that infants have alert phases, and it’s during these that babies are most active and signal for attention
     • Feldman says these alert phases are most common at around 3 months

2. Interactions synchrony

   • When a caregiver and infant are in sync with eachother and move at the same time
   • Meltzoff and moore
     • Recorded babies and adults. The adults pulled faces or directed gestures at the babies. Observers were then asked to record any behaviours that they saw
     • Results showed a relationship between the expression of the adult and the actions of the babies.
     • Well controlled procedure because the actions were recorded. Also observed that the observers had high inter-rater reliability.

3. Evaluation

   • These explanations do not have real-life application. Can not explain why these babies actually reciprocate facial expressions
     • Isabella did conduct some research where she observed mothers and their children, noted that those who had high levels of synchrony were associated with better quality mother infant attachments. Suggests that they could be related