The purpose of this study was to determine whether adults and children influence each other's representations of objects or events during joint picture‐book reading. It was hypothesized that each partner adjusts his or her point of view on objects in order to share knowledge about pictures in the book. Seventeen adult/3‐year‐old child dyads were filmed during a reading session in a day‐care centre. Sequences of child‐adult and adult‐child utterances were considered within exchanges on a common topic and were classified according to the level of abstraction conveyed. A novel Bayesian method for the analysis of directional dependencies revealed that the level of abstraction a partner adopts depends on the level that the other partner has just expressed. A constant reciprocal adaptation is attested by the overrepresentation of sequences of partners’ utterances belonging to the same level. Moreover, adults raise the level of abstraction more often than children, creating a ‘zone of proximal development’. Adults thus appear to stimulate the child's representational abilities since the child is found to follow the adult when the latter changes the level of abstraction.
The purpose of this longitudinal study was to describe objectcentred interactions between mothers and their 2-4-month-old infants, before and during the emergence of reaching and grasping movements. We hypothesized that when reaching movements emerge at around 3 months, mothers alternate between attention stimulation and reaching stimulation, before joint actions between mother and infant develop around objects. Twelve dyads were recorded when infants were 2 months, 3 months and 4 months. The interactive sessions lasted 5 min. Three ageappropriate toys the infant could handle were available to the mother. A principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on verbal and non-verbal maternal behaviours, motor infant behaviours and co-occurrences of those behaviours. The developmental course of prehension in infants when playing with their mother follows similar pathways, as was described when they are observed alone. Mothers appeared to early scaffold prehension skills by verbal and non-verbal means. Moreover, maternal behaviours change according to the infant's behaviour, and conversely, infant's behaviours influence maternal behaviours: mother plays first an active part in joint action, while later on, the infant achieves joint action when motor skills develop. ProcedureThe dyads were longitudinally videotaped at home (2 months) or in the lab (3 and 4 months) by a single female experimenter. The infants were positioned semi-reclined in a baby-seat, facing their mother. A mirror was placed behind the child, so that the camera filmed the child and the reflection of the mother. An observation lasted 5 min, and the mother was simply told to interact with her infant as she usually did, using the toys. Data CodingThe following behaviours (note 1) were detected.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether the familiarity or the novelty of play objects available during mother-infant interaction has an effect on the mother's ability to capture and maintain the infant's attention. Twelve mother-infant dyads with 5-and 9-month-old infants were filmed during two 5-minute sessions with familiar or unfamiliar toys. Changes in the infant's visual orientation preceded by a maternal behaviour within a 3-sec interval were studied. In the familiar toy situation, the infants focused more frequently on the maternal referent than with the unfamiliar toys. The mother's verbal and non-verbal interventions were more effective at initiating and maintaining co-reference, because the infant was more frequently in an receptive state. Conversely, when the toys were unfamiliar, the baby was often the initiator. Unfamiliar objects, which appear more attractive, may compete with the mother's attempts to gain the child's attention.The ability of a mother and her child to establish co-references to objects has been a topic of study for researchers interested in the development of communication and language (Schaffer, 1984). Adults become the mediator between children and objects, thus allowing the infants to integrate the praxic and communicative operating modes into their behaviour (Bruner, 1983). These objects will later become ideic and verbal referents (Bruner, 1975a, b) .One line of research has attempted to determine which parts of the initiative can be ascribed to the mother and which to the child in achieving joint engagement with objects or referents. In a situation involving new toys, Collis and schaffer (1975) found that the adult attempts to follow the child's topics of interest. Trevarthen and Hubley (1978) and Bakeman and Adamson (1984) found that the respective share of the child and of the mother in attending to the same object varied with the infant's age.A second area of research has concentrated on maternal behaviour, describing in detail the referencing procedures used by mothers to initiate co-reference. These include direction of gaze, pointing, bringing the object closer, handling, and language (Schaffer, 1984). Results have demonstrated when and under which conditions a child becomes able to understand verbal and non-verbal behaviours exhiiited by the mother as she indicates referents to her child (Scaife and Bruner, 1975;Butterworth and Cochran, 1980;Butterworth and Grover, 1989;Murphy and Messer, 1977). Although these procedures do have a referential function,
The purpose of this study was to determine whether the dynamics and structure of mother-child interactions around toys vary with the fi1miliarity oftoys. Twelve mother-child dyads with a 5-or 9-month-old infant were filmed two consecutive 5-minute sessions in the presence of fi1miliar or novel objects. By relating the mother's behaviour to her infant's. we were able to define episodes consisting ofphases ofjoint engagement of the two partners on the same topic or reference object. In a context involving familiar objects. mothers more often took the initiative to introduce a topic, and they kept the child's attention focused on the object for longer periods, by means ofvarious manipulations. In contrast, the attractiveness of the novelty gave the infants more initiative, and the mothers followed the child by providing mostly verbal support.This study deals with the effects of familiar and unfamiliar objects on child's attention and on matl~rnal behaviours. A number of studies investigate the ability of a mother and his/her child to establish interactions about objects. Thus, Bruner (1975a) wrote "What we can say at this early juncture is that there is present from a surprisingly early age a mutual system by which joint selective attention between the infant and his caretaker is assured -under the control of the caretaker and/or of the child...". Trevarthen and Hubley (1978) found that from the age of 3 months, interactions about some common environmental topic took place between a mother and her child. Two questions are addressed about joint engagement between a mother and her child attending to the same object which becomes an "object of discussion" (Schaffer, 1984): its onset and its maintenance.Concerning the onset of joint engagement with objects, research has determined the respective frequencies of maternal and child initiatives in establishing the topic. Collis and Schaffer (1975) found that during the first year of life, when the objects are distant, babies more often "visually" take the initiative and mothers follow by looking at the same toy. Indeed, only around 12 months, infants become able to make use of the mother's line of gaze We would like to thank M.G. P~cheux for her assistance and valuable advice.
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