Trading spaces: How mother-infant dyads organize space during object play

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Abstract

How infants and caregivers organize the physical spaces in which they interact is not well understood. Do caregivers position themselves and their infants in ways that support engaging in play based on infants’ postural skills? How many objects enter play spaces as infants’ own actions advance over time? To address these questions, we examined change in how mother-infant dyads positioned themselves to create shared interaction spaces, infants’ developing postural skills, and the numbers of objects accessed during play longitudinally across the first year of life.

Thirty infants and their mothers were videotaped at home during play with a standard toy set for 5 minutes at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. Each session was divided into sixty 5 s intervals. For each interval, coders identified the dyad’s physical orientation in space (i.e., how their bodies were positioned in relation to one another), whether dyads changed orientation, and if so, which partner initiated the change. They also identified infants’ postures (e.g., sitting, standing) and transitions between postures. Finally, coders counted the number of objects (out of 24) available for play (e.g., within infants’ wingspans).

Across the observation period, dyads switched from predominantly facing one another to orienting themselves at right angles (see Figure 1). Moreover, there was a steady increase across sessions in how often dyads changed orientation during play (Ms = .35, 1.38, 4.17, 6.00 and SDs = 1.09, 2.16, 5.94, 5.06 at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, respectively), p < .001 (Figure 1). By 12 months, dyads were observed in multiple orientations, suggesting a more complex and comprehensive use of space as infants gained new motor skills.

There was an inverse relationship with respect to which member of the dyad initiated orientation changes. Mothers were more likely to initiate a change in orientation at 3 (M = 1.00, SD = .00) and 6 months (M = .76, SD = .34), but the opposite was true at later sessions, such that infants were more likely to initiate changes at both 9 (M = .55, SD = .31) and 12 months (M = .72, SD = .21; Figure 2A).

Infant posture shifted from predominantly supine at 3 months to mostly supported and independent sitting at the remaining sessions. Moreover, infants were increasingly likely to transition through multiple postures as they gained new motor skills (Figure 2B). Finally, the number of objects dyads played with increased substantially (Ms = 1.57, 7.09, 9.69, 12.75 and SDs = 0.73, 5.23, 4.40, 5.04 at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, respectively); F(3,94) = 25.52, p < .001.

These results demonstrate striking changes in how mother-infant dyads create shared interaction spaces during play with objects. As new motor skills emerge, infants gain more control over their play space, increasingly switching between orientations and postures and interacting with a wider repertoire of toys during play. Future work will examine how these changes also relate to dyadic coordination of communicative behaviors.

Authors

• Joshua L Schneider, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Emily Roemer Britsch, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jessie Bolz Northrup
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jana M Iverson, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author