Abstract
This study investigated associations between caregiver and infant behaviors from 2 to 18 months and child engagement at 24 months. Caregiver child-oriented behaviors should be considered during intervention to promote child engagement in co-occupation.
Primary Author and Speaker: Cristin M. Holland
Contributing Authors: John Sideris, Pat Levitt, Barbara L. Thompson, Grace Baranek
Infant social engagement undergoes rapid shifts and growth across the first years of life, and lays important foundations, along with caregivers’ ability to appropriately respond to infants’ cues, for later shared experiences, such as joint engagement (Burling & Yoshida, 2019; Egotubov et al., 2020). Limited research exists on bidirectional effects between infant and maternal behavior across early development during co-occupation. This study assessed the associations of infant social engagement and maternal child-oriented behaviors on each other across 2 to 18 months of infant age and child joint engagement at 24 months during play. Fifty-six mother-infant dyads were recruited for a larger study from a community pediatric practice serving a diverse population. Mothers were 18 years or older and spoke English or Spanish as the primary language at home, with infants’ gestational age at least 36 weeks and no perinatal complications or severe impairments. Infant looking to the mother and positive affect were coded across two minutes of mother-infant play at 2, 6, 9, 12, and 18 months of infant age. Infant social engagement (mother looking + positive affect) was obtained by identifying instances of mother gaze and positive affect occurring concomitantly and calculating the total duration of occurrence. Global ratings of 1 (low) to 5 (high) for three items creating a maternal responsiveness/child-oriented scale were also coded at the end of the two minutes. Child joint engagement was coded for total duration across a 10-minute mother-infant free play at 24-36 months. Maternal child-oriented behaviors and infant social engagement were associated with each other at multiple timepoints. Joint engagement was associated with 2 month social engagement and 12 month maternal child-oriented behavior. Occupational therapists should address caregivers’ child-oriented behaviors in co-occupations to promote optimal development of social and joint engagement for infants and children.
Burling, J. M., & Yoshida, H. (2019). Visual constancies amidst changes in handled objects for 5- to 24-month-old infants. Child Development, 90(2), 452–461. https://doi.org/10.111/cdev.13201
Egotubov, A., Atzaba-Poria, N., Meiri, G., Marks, K., & Gueron-Sela, N. (2020). Neonatal Risk, Maternal Sensitive-Responsiveness and Infants’ Joint Attention: Moderation by Stressful Contexts. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 48(3), 453–466. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-019-00598-3