Caregiver Infant Interactions

Question 1

Interactional synchrony (mirroring actions)

Answer 1

Caregiver and infant respond in time to keep communication going e.g infant smiles caregiver smiles back at the same time this type of communication ensures infants and caregivers emotions and actions mirror each others

Question 2

Meltzoff and Moore

Answer 2

Conducted a controlled observation of 40 two week old infants to measure caregiver infant interactions. An adult displayed one of 3 facial expressions or gestures such as mouth opening or tongue protrusion. The child’s response was filmed and identified by an independent observer. A link was found between the facial expression/ gesture of the adult and the response of the infant

Question 3

Reciprocity (turn talking)

Answer 3

This is a two way mutual process where infant and caregiver take turns to respond to each others behavior/signals to sustain interactions(1)
The behavior of each other party elicits a response from the other e.g child puts arm out to be held caregiver picks up

Question 4

Brazelton

Answer 4

Said both mother and infant start the interaction and take it in turns to do so he called this a dance he said when a couple dance together they respond to each others moves

Question 5

AO3

Answer 5

One potential criticism of the research into caregiver infant interactions is that much of the research lacks ecological validity. This is because the research takes place in a controlled environment such as a controlled observation where the caregiver and infant are being filmed. Therefore it is difficult to generalize the findings to real cases of caregiver infant interactions as the infant may not behave how they would do in the real world e.g they may interact with the parent more as they are the only familiar person in the room therefore lowering the external validity of the research in to caregiver infant interactions