Mutuality: Mother and 6-Month-Old Talking Back and Forth Together

This is another mother and her young baby having a conversation together after a feeding.

Teaching Points

• Sensitivity to the baby’s cues helps the parent pace their responses, which helps keep the baby engaged in the conversation.
• For older infants, when the child has more complex and sophisticated babbling, it has been observed that sensitive mothers naturally expand pauses between their verbal responses to permit the child to respond, demonstrating how hard-wired caregivers are to connect and have mutuality with their baby.