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KindeL – Communication in the First Months of Life

This pilot project aims to bring together two previously unconnected strands of research and counselling practice. Research on mother-infant interactions (little is available on fathers) clearly shows the interdependence of self-regulation and external regulation. This means that both – including the infant! – actively participate in the dialogical regulation of the interaction and the accompanying emotions.

Kinder- und Babyspielzeug vor hellblauer Wand
© AdobeStock/FollowTheFlow
Period:
Type:
Cooperation project
Funding:
Innovation Fund of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam

From this research, basic principles of sensitive work for parent-infant counselling were derived. However, in this research, speaking to the infant has so far been considered exclusively under the aspect of rhythmisation. Whether it makes a difference what is said in terms of content is unclear. In contrast, in relationship-oriented counselling work in parent-infant counselling, there are explicit intervention approaches that theoretically justify and describe the conscious (content-related) addressing of infants. How and why there is a particular effectiveness for counselling work here has not yet been empirically clarified.

In order to empirically research the use of language in parent-infant counselling in the long term, a baseline survey with mother and parent-infant pairs and the method of microanalysis is to be laid in this pilot project with students. In the sense of the interplay of self-regulation and regulation by others, it is to be considered whether certain linguistic contents of the parent's self-regulation are conditioned, which are conveyed via the interaction event, in order to integrate this aspect of teaching and research..

Parents with their infants are sought as participants.

Contact

Project management

Involved

  • Sylvia Anderseck (student assistant)
  • Zoë Boeti (former student assistant)