Social interaction is associated with changes in infants' motor activity.

Céline Scola,Marianne Jover,Marie Bourjade

doi:10.3402/snp.v5.28256

Abstract

BackgroundIn developmental research, infants are commonly assumed to be early stakeholders in interactions with their caregivers. The tools that infants can use to interact with others vary from visual contact to smiling or vocalizing, and also include motor activity. However, surprisingly few studies have explored how the nature and context of social interactions affect infants’ engagement in motor activity.MethodsWe investigated the kinematic properties of foot and face movements produced by 11 infants aged between 5 and 9 months during six contrasting dyadic episodes (i.e. passive presence of a stranger or the infant's mother, weak or intense interaction with the stranger/mother as she sings a nursery play song).ResultsThe infants’ face and foot motor activity was significantly reduced during the interactive episodes, compared with the episodes without any interaction, in both the mother and stranger conditions. Furthermore, the level of their motor activity was significantly lower in the stranger condition than in the mother one for some parameters.ConclusionThese results are in line with those reported by previous studies and confirm the relevance of using motor activity to delineate the early forms of interactive episodes in infants.

Highlights

In developmental research, infants are commonly assumed to be early stakeholders in interactions with their caregivers
The infants’ face and foot motor activity was significantly reduced during the interactive episodes, compared with the episodes without any interaction, in both the mother and stranger conditions. The level of their motor activity was significantly lower in the stranger condition than in the mother one for some parameters. These results are in line with those reported by previous studies and confirm the relevance of using motor activity to delineate the early forms of interactive episodes in infants
Despite Thelen’s (1981) and Trevarthen’s (1986) assertions that body movements are key to the study of early communication and its development, few studies have so far explored how infants engage in motor activity according to the nature and context of social interactions

Summary

Background

Infants are commonly assumed to be early stakeholders in interactions with their caregivers. Despite Thelen’s (1981) and Trevarthen’s (1986) assertions that body movements are key to the study of early communication and its development, few studies have so far explored how infants engage in motor activity according to the nature and context of social interactions. The aim of this preliminary study was twofold. These episodes varied with regard to the level of interaction (no interaction, weak interaction, intense interaction) and the nature of the social relationship (mother vs. stranger)

Method

Stranger Singing distant

Results

Discussion