Coordinated Interpersonal Timing of Down-Syndrome and Nondelayed Infants with Their Mothers: Evidence for a Buffered Mechanism of Social Interaction

Abstract
A longitudinal study of four- and nine-month-old infants indicates that they coordinate the timing of their vocal behavior with that of their mothers and vice versa. Maternal interactions of Down-syndrome and nondelayed infants were analyzed and found not to differ with regard to such temporal coordination, indicating that it is independent of level of cognitive functioning. The capacity for coordinated timing is proposed as a mechanism for the facilitation of social interaction. Such coordination parallels temporal matching observed in a variety of species along the phylogenetic scale.

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