Caregiver-infant interactions

Caregiver-infant interactions

1. Reciprocity

   • Description of how two people interact, both responds to each other
   • Can turn-take, if baby smile then mother responds then baby responds so on
   • Babies have alert phases which signals they want interaction
     • Mother usually responds around 2/3 of the time (Feldman and Eidelman, 2007)
     • Varies according to skill of mother and external factors like stress (Feldman 2007)
   • Traditional views of childhood portrayed babies in passive role receiving care from adults but babies take active role like caregivers
     • T. Berry Brazelton (1975) described interaction as 'dance' because it is just like a couple's dance where each partner responds to each other's moves

2. Interactional Synchrony

   • Caregiver and baby reflect both the actions and emotions of the other and do this in co-ordinated way
   • 'Temporal co-ordinated of micro-level social behaviour' (Feldman 2007)
   • Meltzoff and Moore (1977) observed beginnings of interactional synchrony in babies (young as 2 weeks), adult make 1 of 3 facial expressions/ gestures and baby's response filmed and labelled
     • Baby's expression abd gestures were more likely to mirror those of adults more than chance would predict
   • Believed interactional synchrony is important for development of caregiver-infant attachment
     • Russell Isabella (1989) observed 30 mothers and babies together and assessed degree of synchrony and mother-baby attachment
       • Found high levels of synchrony with better mother-infant relationships

3. Evaluation

   • Filmed in lab so it has good controlled environment and the researcher can observe the footage multiple times
     • Reliable and good validity
   • Babies are difficult to observe so the observer could be seeing something that isn't happening so we can't be sure if a baby's behaviour is significant
   • Ruth Feldman (2012) says how interactional synchrony and reciprocity are just caregiver and baby behaviours and doesn't tell us about the child's development and the purpose of the behaviours
     • But Isabella (1989) suggests that interactional synchrony can predict a good quality attachment
   • Practical application as Crotwell (2013) found that a 10-minute Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) improved interactional synchrony in 20 low-income mothers and their preschool children
   • Caregiver-infant interaction is socially sensitive because a mothercould risk damaging their baby's development by going back to work