Care Giver - Infant Interactions

Care Giver - Infant Interactions

1. RECIPROCITY: responding to the action of another with a similar action. This elicits a response from the partner.

   • JAFFE ET AL (1973)- Infants coordinated actions with Caregivers.
   • BRAZELTON (1979)- Suggested that this basic rhythm is important for later communication. Regularity of infants signals allows CAREGIVER to anticipate infants behaviour and respond appropriately. Lays the foundation for formation of ATTACHMENT.

2. ATTACHMENT and emotional bond between two people which is two way and endures over time.

3. CAREGIVER: Any person who is providing care for a child such as a Parent (Primary), relative or childminder etc.

4. INTERACTIONAL SYNCHRONY: Interaction during which two people mirror what one another is doing in terms of facial expressions etc. This also includes imitating one an others emotions.

   • MELZOFF & KEITH MOORE (1977)- Systematic study observing babies, found that infants as young as TWO- THREE WEEKS old imitated some facial expression and hand gestures. An adult model displayed gestures/ expressions and Childs expression was filmed. Association found between infants and models behaviour.
     • Conducted same experiment on infants only 3 days old. This proved that the imitation behaviours were INNATE NOT LEARNED behaviour!
     • JEAN PIAGET (1962)- believed true imitation developed at a END OF FIRST YEAR. Anything before that was due to 'response training'. Infant gets a reward (mum smiles back) if they imitate behaviour. Could the infant consciously be aware of a matching movement?
       • pseudo - imitation or real
     • Unresponsive mother in similar study caused infant distress. this proved that the infant was seeking a response from the mother. This further supports the idea that it is not a learned behaviour but it is in fact innate and not due to conditioning.

5. EVALUATION!!

   • [ X ] PROBLEMS WITH TESTING INFANT BEHAVIOUR- Can we trust the reliability of the studies. infants mouths are constantly in motion therefore it is hard to distinguish between just general activity or imitated behaviours.
   • [ X ] FAILURE TO REPLICATE- Other studies failed to replicate the findings Melfzoff and Keith Moore found. KOEPKE ET AL (1983) failed to replicate HOWEVER... it was argued that the was due to the lack of control over the experiments variables. MARIAN ET AL (1996)- infants could not distinguish between live and videoed interactions with their Mothers which suggests that they are intact not responding to the Mother. HOWEVER... problem may lie with the procedure rather than the findings.
   • [ + ] BEHAVIOUR INTENTIONAL- another method was used to test the intentionality of the infants behaviour and the response to inanimate objects was observed. ABRAVANEL & DEYONG (1991) replicated the study found that infants (5-12 weeks old) made little response to the objects. Concluded that the behaviour was a specific social response to other humans.
   • [ X ] INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES- There are some variation between infants. ISABELLA ET AL (1989)- found that strongly attached infants and mothers showed a high level of Interactional Synchrony. HEIMANN (1989)- showed infants who demonstrate a lot of imitation from birth onwards, have a better quality of attachment at 3 months. HOWEVER... isn't clear whether imitation is a cause or an effect of this early synchrony?