Although parental volubility, or amount of talk, has received
considerable recent attention, infant volubility has received comparatively
little attention despite its potential significance for communicative risk
status and later linguistic and cognitive outcomes. Volubility of 16 typically
developing infants from 2 to 11 months of age was longitudinally investigated in
the present study across three social circumstances: parent talking to infant,
parent not talking to infant and parent talking to interviewer while the infant
was in the room. Results indicated that volubility was least in the Interview
circumstance. There were no significant differences in volubility between the
parent Talk and No Talk circumstances. Volubility was found to reduce with age.
These results suggest that infants vocalise in a variety of circumstances, even
when no one talks to or interacts with them. The presence of a stranger or
perhaps overhearing adults speaking to each other, however, may significantly
reduce infant volubility.
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