Balancing for weaknesses and challenging developmental potential: A longitudinal study of mother-infant dyads in apprenticeship interactions.

Abstract

Mother-infant interactions, in order to be effective in fostering infant mastery, may resemble apprenticeship interactions: The more competent partner balances for weaknesses of the other partner and, at the same time, challenges the less competent partner's developmental potential by setting advanced goals. This study adopts a longitudinal design in order to track intradyad developmental change in infant task-related mastery and concomitant maternal behavior. The interactions of 12 mother-infant pairs performing simple tasks were video-recorded on five occasions, at bimonthly intervals between the infant's 14th and 22nd month. It is expected, as infants gain more mastery across the longitudinal span, that mothers gradually withdraw support in terms of concrete, specific, and nonverbal means of instruction. It is predicted, moreover, that mothers follow a one-step-ahead strategy when adapting their instructions to their infants' current level of mastery. The results indicate that, across the longitudinal span, mothers gradually withdrew support as their infants gained mastery. Maternal instructions became less explicit, less concrete, less nonverbal, and more verbal across the longitudinal span. The findings support the predicted one-step-ahead model for maternal instruction, both on a global and microsequential level. The issue of instruction in natural contexts has become central in developmental psychology, especially in research regarding infants and preschoolers (Rogoff & Wertsch, 1984). Kaye (1982) has proposed the concept of apprenticeship as a characterization of interactions between parents and infants. An apprenticeship frame can serve as an instructional frame (out of many similar ones in life-span development) in which adults, as the more competent partners, foster children's acquisition of skills and knowledge by carefully balancing for the children's current weaknesses or lack of competence and, at the same time, challenge their developmental potential. Vygotsky's concept of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky; 1978) closely resembles this conception: It is the competent partner's helping support combined with the setting of challenging action goals that assists the child to achieve beyond its current level of mastery and, thus, promotes the child's development.