Talking to talkers: Infants' talk status, but not their gender, is related to language input

Dailey, Shannon; Bergelson, Elika

doi:10.1111/cdev.13872

Cited by 14 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 117 publications

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“…in ADS is that parents are detecting that their children are attuned to language and need good language models. Indeed, parents talk more to infants who have begun to talk than infants who are not talking yet (Dailey and Bergelson, 2022). Findings from our study are consistent with several of these possibilities.…”

Section: Mothers Exhibit Ids In Their Speech To Their Childrensupporting

confidence: 88%

Maternal beliefs about infant-directed speech misalign with interactions with their infants

Ramirez,

Herbst,

Golinkoff

2023

Front. Dev. Psychol.

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IntroductionInfant-directed speech (IDS) refers to how people in many societies talk with young children. Compared to speech directed to an adult (ADS), IDS includes a slower rate, fewer words per utterance, higher-than-average pitch, and elongated vowels. Although many benefits are associated with using IDS, there is little information on what parents think about IDS. The current study asked: (1) How do mothers conceptualize IDS; (2) Is there an alignment between mothers' IDS beliefs and their speech register when teaching a new word to their child; and (3) How do mothers' IDS beliefs associate with children's expressive language and performance on a word learning task?MethodsFifty-three mothers and their 15- to 21-month-old monolingual English-reared infants (Mage = 17.92, SD = 1.99, 23 males) participated. Mothers were asked to teach their child a novel word and to complete the Parent Language Belief Questionnaire (PLBQ). Mothers' IDS was recorded as they taught their child a novel word and was compared to their ADS from interacting with the experimenter.ResultsFindings revealed that mothers had mixed beliefs about their use of IDS. Yet, most mothers used IDS as they taught their child a novel word. Lastly, mothers' IDS beliefs did not predict children's language skills or word learning at test.DiscussionThe current study is the first to explore whether mothers' beliefs about their use of infant-directed speech align with their actual use of IDS. As the positive benefits between IDS and children's language development have been documented, identifying the barriers surrounding why parents may not use IDS with their children is essential.

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Section: Mothers Exhibit Ids In Their Speech To Their Childrensupporting

confidence: 88%

Maternal beliefs about infant-directed speech misalign with interactions with their infants

Ramirez,

Herbst,

Golinkoff

2023

Front. Dev. Psychol.

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“…Mimeau et al, 2020). Prosodic, phonological, morphological, syntactic and other modifications are systematically applied to adult speech (Cychosz et al, 2021;Moscoso del Prado et al, 2020;Roy et al, 2009;Snow, 1995) according to a range of child characteristics, primarily language ability (Dailey & Bergelson, 2023;Pancsofar, 2020) and age (Rowe & Snow, 2020). Overall parents engage in significant levels of fine-tuning to the child's lexical knowledge even at the level of individual words (Huttenlocher et al, 2010;Leung et al, 2021;Odijk & Gillis, 2021), and specific inflectional and syntactical constructions (Moscoso del Prado et al, 2020;Odijk & Gillis, 2023).…”

Section: Parents Adapt Their Child-directed Speechmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parent–toddler play talk: Toddler speech is differentially associated with paternal and maternal speech in interaction

Quigley,

Nixon

2023

First Language

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Children’s speech is influenced by the speech they hear, in particular by the parental speech addressed directly to them. The aim of this study was to analyse toddlers’ speech with their parents and to investigate the influence of specific characteristics of child-directed speech on child speech in real time during mother–child and father–child dyadic interactions. Eighty-four children ( M = 24.11 months, SD = 1.37, 42 girls) and their parents were video-recorded in dyadic freeplay. Parent and child speech was compared on measures of quantity (number of words), quality (vocabulary diversity, proportion, and composition of nouns/verbs) and productivity or complexity. Overall findings reveal very similar speech produced by mothers and fathers with their toddlers and by toddlers with each parent, with the exception of vocabulary diversity patterns. Furthermore, the child-directed speech of mothers and fathers was differently associated with child speech in interaction. Findings suggest that children may be exposed to different lexical sets by mother and father and there may be added value for the child of engaging in separate dyadic interactions with mother and father. Implications for research include sampling child speech across contexts and conversational partners.

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“…Supporting Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), the facilitative features of adult input have been found to depend on children’s age and level of language skills ( Rowe and Snow, 2020 ; Anderson et al, 2021 ). The language level of the child rather than the child’s age also determines how much parental speech is directed to children ( Dailey and Bergelson, 2022 ). Moreover, research has revealed somewhat differential effects of various aspects of parental speech at different child ages.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mothers who talk more tend to have more talkative children. It is known that parents talk more to infants who have just begun to talk and to toddlers with higher language skills ( Dailey and Bergelson, 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal links between maternal directives, children’s engagement in family conversations, and child linguistic skills

Tulviste

Tamm

2023

Front. Psychol.

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BackgroundResearch on mother–child verbal interaction is largely inspired by Vygotsky. The results align with his view that children acquire language and culture-specific ways of using language through actively participating in daily conversations with adults. Supporting Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, the facilitative features of such conversations have been found to depend on age, the level of the child’s language skills, and the interactional context. Most previous studies in the field have been conducted in English-speaking Western families with a focus on the first years of children’s lives. As Estonian middle-class mothers have been found to put greater emphasis on controlling children than mothers from other cultural contexts, we included the frequency of using directives as one of the features of mothers’ speech that might have an impact on child language development.AimAccordingly, the current study explored the relative impact of various aspects of mother–child interaction (e.g., mothers’ vocabulary diversity, use of attentional and behavioral directives, wh-questions, and the amount of children’s talk) on children’s language skills using data collected from Estonian middle-class families at two timepoints, 1 year apart. As a novel approach to this topic, the study also examined the correlation between mothers’ input features and children’s participation in the parent–child conversation.MethodA total of 87 children aged 3;0 and 4;0 and their mothers participated in the study. We observed the mother–child interactions during a semistructured videotaped game played at home. Mothers reported their children’s language skills via the ECDI-III. Children’s language comprehension and production were measured using the examiner-administered NRDLS.Results and conclusionAlthough the results showed somewhat differential effects of various aspects of mothers’ speech on different measures of child language skills at two timepoints, the diversity of mothers’ speech was positively, and mothers’ frequent use of directives negatively related to children’s language skills. At both ages, the diversity of mothers’ speech predicted the amount of children’s verbal contribution to conversations. The findings will be discussed in light of Vygotskian and his followers’ theoretical views and theories about child language development.

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Talking to talkers: Infants' talk status, but not their gender, is related to language input

Cited by 14 publications

References 117 publications

Maternal beliefs about infant-directed speech misalign with interactions with their infants

Maternal beliefs about infant-directed speech misalign with interactions with their infants

Parent–toddler play talk: Toddler speech is differentially associated with paternal and maternal speech in interaction

Longitudinal links between maternal directives, children’s engagement in family conversations, and child linguistic skills

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