Characterizing Mother-Infant Dyadic Behaviors Following Infant Bids for Attention: Potential Mechanisms for Promoting Infant Attention Control and Language.

Maternal responsiveness to infant bids for attention predicts a variety of child outcomes including language, social-emotional, and cognitive functioning. Recently, a study demonstrated that greater maternal redirection (but not acceptance) of infant bids for attention predicted lower distractibility and, in turn, better receptive language outcomes in infants. To learn more about the potential basis for these relations, the current study took an in-depth look at differences in mother-infant dyadic behaviors as a function of whether mothers responded to infant bids for attention by redirecting versus accepting bids. We examined differences in infant gaze, mother-infant dyadic gaze, maternal multimodality (combining gaze, touch, and vocalizing), and maternal response speed. When infants (N = 67) were 12 months of age, we coded mother-infant interactions for maternal responses (accepted, redirected, ignored) to infant bids for attention. Maternal responses were further coded for multimodal behaviors (unimodal, bimodal, and trimodal) and speed of responding. The focus of infant gaze and maternal gaze were also coded (toy, partner, other). Results indicate that mothers engaged in more attentionally salient behaviors (e.g., more multimodal behaviors) when redirecting than accepting infant bids for attention, and that infants responded to those redirections with more joint attention and more looking to toys. The current study builds upon prior work and illustrates a potential process through which maternal redirection of infant bids for attention may facilitate attention control and language.