In Tune. Multimodal Mother-Child Interpersonal Coordination During Early Childhood

A complex dynamic systems perspective was applied to explore how mother and child mutually shape interpersonal coordination. Applying a microanalytic design, this study examined moment-to-moment interaction behavior of 39 Dutch mothers and their three- and four-year old children (53.8% girls, predominantly White) during a collaboration task. Fine-grained time-series data were extracted about the verbal, affective, and body movement modalities. Cross-recurrence quantification analysis showed that mothers and children were coupled within all three modalities, both on a short time-scale as well as over extended temporal delays. Patterns of interpersonal coordination were complex, multimodal, dyad-specific, and highlighted mutual involvement. It remains to be investigated how different patterns of interpersonal coordination may serve as a diagnostic marker of (mal)adaptive child development.