Ravneet Kaur, “Maternal Responses to Infant Disengagement: Physical Strategies Mothers Use to Maintain Attunement with Their Infant”
Mentor: Victoria Moerchen, Physical Therapy, Rehabilitation Sciences & Technology (School of)
Poster #18
Early caregiver-infant interactions are critical for healthy infant development. A key aspect of dyadic interaction is behavioral attunement. Attunement is the contingency and congruency of each member’s behavior, relative to the other’s cues. Existing evidence that physical interaction is the primary mode of communication between dyads during early infancy, supports that physical behaviors during interactions are particularly important to achieve attuned, positive interactions. Emerging research shows caregivers select from a repertoire of physical behaviors to sustain mutual attunement with their infants throughout interactions. However, little is known about how caregivers modify their physical behaviors to restore mutual attunement after it is lost. This study addressed this gap, by exploring how mothers immediately adjust their physical behaviors after their infant disengages during interactions, in an attempt to re-engage them. We conducted a secondary analysis of existing video data of 20 mothers interacting with their 4 month-old, typically developing infants. Each interaction included 5 minutes of free-play and was coded in 1-second intervals for maternal physical behavior, infant engagement, and mother-infant attunement. Preliminary results show that following infant disengagement, mothers used one of three re-engagement strategies: switched to a new behavior (61.3%), continued the same behavior (22.6%), or stopped touching the infant (16.1%). Success rates for re-engaging the infants were 21.1%, 57.1%, and 0%, for strategies of new behavior, continued behavior, and stopping touch, respectively. Regardless of re-engagement strategy, mothers responding to infant disengagement with a playful behavior had the highest success rate for re-engagement (50%). These results provide evidence that mothers respond to infant disengagement with physical strategies to reachieve attunement after it has been lost. Our findings support ongoing investigation into how physical behavior during dyadic interaction can promote attuned interactions and ultimately improve infant developmental outcomes.