Caregiver-infant interactions

Attachment-this is the strong, reciprocal, emotional bond between infant and primary caregiver with the ned to gain proximity; infant uses caregiver as a secure base and becomes distressed when they are absent.

Caregiver-infant interactions

Reciprocity-this refers to the two-way interactions between infant and primary caregiver as mutual responses from both parties. an example of this is smiling as when the infant smiles, the caregiver smiles back, and vice versa.

This was studied by Feldman and Eidelman; they found that mums pick up on their childs alertness 2/3rds of the time. From 3 months, more attention is paid to each other which influences frequent interactions and turn taking.

Interactional synchrony-rhythmic interactions that are mirrored in direct response to each other as their actions are coordinated to resemble a conversation. infants and caregivers can both anticipate how the other will behave; this also means that they know how to react well to these behaviours. For example, laughing-the caregiver can tickle the infant causing them to giggle, the infant then laughs in response.

Meltzoff and Moore studied this by observing 2 week old infants and had adults maje faces that the infants could copy-this was also tested on 3 day old babies. they found a high level of accuracy and concluded that it must be innate as the infants are too young to have previously learnt.                                               An evaluation of this is that the faces the child makes may be quite hard to distinguish as to whether it is an actual response to the caregiver or just a random response; they also used independent judges meaning that the inter-observer reliablility is high as they can review all of the findings to check the accuracy.

Brazelton…