Developmental changes and real-time dynamics in mother-infant communication: A microgenetic study

This contribution is aimed to show the relevance of microgenetic designs to study change processes in early mother-infant communication. The focus is on how analysing and understanding changes at the micro-level of real-time dynamics of mother-infant co-regulation - intensively observed over a period that crosses a key developmental transition - is fundamental to understanding changes in maternal and infant behaviors during communication at the macro-level of developmental time. Twenty-four mother-infant dyads were videotaped weekly during a naturalistic face-to-face interaction between birth and 3 months, across the 2-month transition indexed by the onset of social smiling. Developmental trajectories of face-to-face communication showed a curvilinear development with a significant increase between weeks 4-10, depending on the dyad. Changes in maternal behaviors paralleled the main developmental changes in infant behaviors. The microanalysis of change processes in the relationship between maternal and infant behaviors in real time revealed a dynamics of mutual influence: e.g., the onset of infant Smile(IS) and Cooing(IC) significantly affected the occurrences of maternal Reflecting(MR) that, on the other hand, encouraged significantly the expression of IS and IC giving rise to sequences of positive feedback that amplified and organized the emotional exchange, and continued to increase through the 3rd month.