Communication in Infancy: Mutual Regulation of Affect and Attention

Beginning in the 1970s, a view has been expressed that young infants exhibit a natural ability for “intersubjectivity”, or an effective mind knowledge, and show an early ability to engage in communication with other psychological beings. This view has caused vigorous debate amongst psychologists who argue that early social interaction by human infants cannot be called true communication for a variety of reasons. Infant communication seen as entailing a perception of the other as a psychological recipient and partner is clearly antithetical to prevailing cognitive developmental approaches which view communication as mediated by late developing cognitions about mental states. Recently some writers have attempted…