DEMONSTRATE CONTINGENT RESPONSE

CONTINGENT RESPONSIVENESS

The interaction between the care giver and the child is of crucial important. The quality of interaction influences not only the child’s development but also shapes his/her future personality traits. All parents expect their children to be responsible. Yet, expectation is not enough. Parents and care givers need to demonstrate certain forms of behavior that function as early roots of child’s sense of control over their environment.

Studies have shown that warm supportive, sensitive and consistent care giving plays an important role in healthy development of  the child. Sensitive and responsive behavior has been linked at least two specific classes of child outcomes attachment and belief about control. The basic processes are link to other aspects such as child’s exploratory behavior, goal-directed cognitive performance and problem solving.

WHAT IS CONTINGENCY ? Contingency is the relationship between a person’s action and a desire event. When an activity quickly, consistently and discriminatively leads an event, the event is said to be contingent on that action. It is shown that infant able to perceive the contingency between their action and environmental events. Mother whose infant experience contingent mobiles tend to indicate similar infant responses to them. The babies love their mothers. They laugh, cry and in general send out happy social signals in response to contingency responses. A “contingent” mother is one who responds quickly, consistently and only to the target action.

In addition, the contingent responsiveness of care giver has another major consequence for the infant. From the repeated occurrences of consequences in wich the infant’s behavior serves as the stimulus eliciting a predictable adult response, the bay learns that the behavior can elicit environment consequences. What occurs next is the most important. The baby can elicit responses and thus partially determines its own experiences.

WHAT IS CARE GIVER’S SENSITIVITY ? Sensitivity is the availability, responsiveness to signals and reliability of emotional comfort. It is found that  maternal sensitivity is related to secure attachment between the mother and the child. securely attached children are more enthusiastic, more persistent and more able to utilize maternal assistance.

Other studies have found that securely attached infants are more competent with peers(at age 3 half years), are more curious and ego resilient at age 5. Ego resilience is a competence construct that reflects the child’s ability to respond with flexibility and persistently, especially in problem solving situations. There is a general agreement with the statement “it is through interaction with sensitive adults that infants develop a nation of their own effectance”.

WHAT IS RESPONSIVENESS ? It is similar to the notion of sensitivity.It denotes promptness with which a care giver extends assistance to the baby. For instance, the mother takes appropriate steps at crying signal of the infant. It is found that the responsiveness of a mother figure to infant signals promotes the development of social competence.

Crying is signaling behavior . IT is shown that the  responsiveness of mother helps to establish a contingency between infant crying and mother’s behavior. The learning of this relationship gradually generalizes to other person’s behavior and events. As result, this helps to foster a contingency between child’s behaviors and outcomes only in the physical world but also in interpersonal domain. The child develops a sense of mastering the physical world as well as strengthening the interpersonal trust.

WHAT PARENTS AND CARE GIVERS CAN DO ?

• Develop contingent parent-child interaction respond quickly, consistently and discriminatively the     signaling behavior of the infant and young child.
• Show sensitivity to the needs of the child. While showing behavior, make it not only contingent but   also appropriate.
• While deciding appropriateness, show both responsiveness to the child’s specific signals initiation of   behavior appropriate to the child’s developmental level and current state.

Related Articles

• Infant Massage: When to Start and What to Expect in a Class (mothersandcompany.wordpress.com)
• Holding Patterns (psychologytoday.com)
• True First Love (psychologytoday.com)
• How to Raise a Healthy and Happy Eater: Follow a Division of Responsibility in Feeding (education.com)

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