Attentional Abilities and Maternal Scaffolding in the First Year of Life

It is argued here that the development of attentional abilities during infancy does not rely exclusively on individual, stable characteristics of the child, but that interactions between infants and their social and physical environment play an important role in this development. In a longitudinal study at home, dyadic interactions and attentional behaviours were recorded at 5 and 8 months in 30 dyads. Two questions were relevant: How is focused attention part of infants' activities in their usual environment? How is the mother involved in this focused attention, and do maternal behaviours have effects on the infant? At around 5 months of age, a coherent set of results show that the mother plays a crucial role in the control of the infant's attention, which is still detectable three months later. The notion of attention scaffolding, which foreshadows subsequent scaffolding during problem solving, is discussed, as well as the indices evaluating attentional abilities.