About MACI-Infant

The Manchester Assessment of Caregiver-Child Interaction – Infant Version (MACI-Infant) is a method of systematically evaluating qualitative or global aspects of behavioural interaction between a primary caregiver and infant through rating their unstructured play from videotape. Seven areas of caregiver-infant interaction are measured, and these rating scales are based within a normative developmental model, designed to capture a wide variance of interactions in both normative/healthy and at-risk/atypically developing infants.

The measure was developed to fulfil the need to evaluate global features of interaction for research purposes and which (1) is relatively brief and quick to rate in key areas defining quality of interaction; (2) is valid over a long period of infancy (4-15 months), so lends itself to longitudinal study; (3) rests on directly observable behaviours and based on empirical evidence (rather than theoretical assumptions) in developmental psychology.

The main features of the MACI-Infant are:

  • Suitable for infants of 4 to 15 months
  • Consists of 8 scales, covering caregiver, infant and dyad aspects of interaction
  • Ratings are made along a 7-point scale that show variance across the population
  • Based on 6 minutes of caregiver-infant interaction videotaped in the lab or home
  • Development was based on existing validated global measures of parent-infant interaction
  • Psychometrics available for normative samples and for infants at risk of autism