Infant’s Engagement States and Maternal
Attention-Directing at 2 Months
Kate Ellis, Elena Sakkalou, Nia Fowler, & Merideth Gattis
School of Psychology, Cardiff University
Infant Attention Development Through Infancy
Bakeman and Adamson (1983) Engagement states from 5
months during mother and peer interactions
At 6 months with mothers
–Unengaged 21%
–Onlooking12%
–Person 12%
–Object 37%
–Passive Joint 17%
–Coordinated Joint 2%
Unengaged
Onlooking
FIRST STEPS
A longitudinal study investigating the imitative,
communicative, motoric and cognitive development of
infants from birth to 18 months.
Hypotheses
Infant attention would influence maternal behaviour over the 10
minutes of interaction
Results
Infants spent most time onlooking, with
onlooking mother and the mother’s chosen
objects consisting of the majority of time spent
in attentional state.
First Steps Percent of Total Time
Unengaged
Person
Object
Passive Joint
Coordinated Joint
Maternal Behaviour
Strategies employed by the mother to engage the attention of the
infant can either be maintaining or redirecting. If strategies are
responsive can support development of attention, and related
developmental milestones (Landry, Smith, Swank and MillerLoncar, 2000)
Maternal responsiveness at 24 and 36 months supports
development of attention control (Schmidt & Lawson, 2002).
Garstein, Crawford & Robertson (2008) parental synchronicity
and reciprocity predictors of duration of orienting at 12 months
Maternal Directiveness at 12 months was negatively associated
with later language development (Tomasello & Todd, 1983)
•Infant habituation rate at 5 months and temperament at 13 and
20 months were predictive of mother’s behaviour at 20 months
Danis,Bourdais & Ruel (2000)
•Infant’s exploration and play within the non-social world has
impacts affect mirroring of mothers to reinforce exploration
(Jonsson & Clinton, 2006)
•Bidirectional contingency of maternal characteristics and infant
contribution of action on objects and attention state
Onlooking Person
Method and Procedure
Mother-Infant object centred interactions in a patterned tent with
toys. Asked to interact with their infant for 10 minutes as they
would normally. Interactions were coded separately for the
infant’s attentional state and mother’s frequency variation and
duration of object use as a method of attention-directing with an
80% agreement
Onlooking Mother's
Object
Onlooking Other Object
Person
Object
Passive Joint
Coordinated Joint
Coding Approach
Adaptation of Bakeman and Adamson’s approach with the sub
categories for onlooking person, object chosen by mother
and alternative object, to reflect visual attention as the main
form of engagement at 2 months. By dividing onlooking
behaviours an association between infant attention in the initial
period of interaction and the maternal behaviour in the
subsequent period of interaction
Significant regressions were found:
Time spent onlooking mother’s object and
time mother spent engaging with objects
R2=.146, F (1,36)=6.139, p<0.05
Duration of each infant look to alternative
object and the frequency of object use by
mother
R2=. 167 F (1,36)=7.242, p<0.01
Conclusions
Infants spend most time in the state of
onlooking, with onlooking mother’s object
most frequent. Infant’s behaviour predictive of
subsequent object use by mother’s
Acknowledgements
Merideth Gattis
Elena Sakkalou
Nia Fowler
Elma Hilbrink
Sylwia Matuszewska