Caregiver-Infant Interactions

Caregiver-Infant Interactions

1. Reciprocity

   • Babies move in rhythm with interacting
   • e.g leaning forward and speaking then the other persons turn
   • Regularity of infants signals allow caregivers to anticipate them
   • Sensitivity to infant behaviour lays foundation of attactment
   • Infants actions act like a conversation

2. Interactional synchrony

   • Infants display specific gestures
   • Adult displayed specific actions
   • Infants imitated these actions
   • When the adult did the gestures a dummy was put in the baby's mouth to prevent them from imitating it
   • The child imitated this behaviour as young as three days old

3. Real or Pseudo imitation

   • True imitation developed after the first year
   • Before this first year infants repeat behaviour that is rewarded
   • Rewards such as the caregiver smiling at the child
   • Only pseudo imitation if the infant doesn't translate the gestures

4. Problem with testing infant behavour

   • Infants mouths are nearly always in constant motion
   • Tested expressions occur frequently anyway
   • Makes it difficult to differenciate between stimulated and general behaviour

5. Failure to replicate

   • Other studies have failed to replicate the findings
   • Another study found that infants couldn't distinguish between video and real life
   • Infants aren't actually responding to adults
   • Fault may lie with the procedure

6. Is the behaviour intentional

   • Another study showed how infants react to inanimate objects
   • Infants made little response to the objects
   • Infants don't imitate everything they see