Child Caregiver Observation

1000 Words2 Pages

The following paper will provide an analysis of a child-caregiver interaction as well as an interpretation of the connection. In doing so, joint attention and gaze following were perceived in the observation. Joint attention, is also described as shared attention; is known as an early developing social communicative skill where two individuals use actions and gaze while sharing attention with objects (Carpendale, 2016). Joint attention is a vital step in the development of language and social skills in children (Carpendale, 2016). The quintessential place to observe a child’s interactions with a caregiver would either be at home or at the mall, due to the high number of groups to observe. While there were many groups, one that caught my eye …show more content…

Most of what I observed was the father using a miniature yellow bus toy to try and help his daughter learn colors and shapes. The father would show his daughter the toy in a manner that would convey excitement, while asking questions about the color of the object, the shape of the object and what sound it would make. The little girl tried to answer these questions, but unfortunately most of her answers were inaudible. However, when the father would point to the object, both of them would look, exhibiting joint attention on the yellow bus toy. Joint attention is when there is a “mutual knowledge of both individuals as being attentive towards the same external entity” (Fiebich & Gallagher, 2013). In this case the yellow bus and other objects pointed out were the external entities. Although the child would occasionally look at the toy, most of her attention was wondering; she would look around at other spots in the mall, including bystvanders passing by and signs but …show more content…

Gaze following refers to interactions where another’s attention is drawn somewhere else, usually cued by another’s head turn or eye turn (Carpendale, 2016). As people age gaze following becomes more advanced, but at the observed stage it was very basic; as the daughter would try to follow her father’s head direction, but often would look at another object in the same direction, as opposed to the red block he was trying to point out. The author Moore (2008) in the “The development of Gaze Following” pointed out that this can be attributed to the fact that “when infants first start to follow gaze, they do so on the basis of head direction, not eye direction”. Upon looking back at her father, he would make eye contact with her, and then try to lead her eye contact to the red block by switching his gaze and turning his head. Finally, when the daughter recognized the block, the father told her to go get it and she did. It seemed as the young girl was just learning to follow the father’s eyesight, but more success came from following his head. This proves Moore’s aforementioned theory from years back. However, there is much controversy as to when a child starts to understand gaze as a means of focusing on something else. A recent study has shown that “infants begin to notice others’ gaze by their first birthdays, however,

More about Child Caregiver Observation

Open Document