Sequential Patterns of Toddler Negative Emotions within Everyday Parent-Toddler Communication

• In Event: 1-064 - Emotion in the Voice: Leveraging Automated Assessment to Study Communication and Regulation in Early Childhood

Integrative Statement

Although emotional and language development appear to be related, young children’s emotional and verbal expression, and the communication processes that influence their development, are historically studied separately (Bloom et al., 2001; Cole et al., 2010). Yet emotions and language are interwoven within real-time, continuous interactions in children’s everyday experience. Our paper employs Language Environment Analysis (LENA; Xu, Yapanel, & Gray, 2009), an automated processing tool, to examine dynamic sequential patterns of emotional and verbal parent-toddler communication in the second year. The role of negative emotions is thought to change dramatically during this developmental period, which is marked by the onset of verbal expression, a peak in negative emotion, and by parent socialization practices that encourage the development of independent emotion regulation (Brownell & Kopp, 2010). Evidence, however, is indirect or mixed; some studies suggest toddlers’ negative emotions discourage verbal communication with parents (Bloom & Beckwith, 1989; Kubicek & Emde) and others suggest they elicit parental verbal regulatory responses (Spinrad, Stifter, Donelan-McCall, & Turner, 2004).

Twenty-five one-year-olds (12-23 months, Mean=16.60 months; 60% female) wore the LENA recorder for a full day. LENA generated continuous records of parent-toddler communication, including toddler verbalizations, their cries, and parent speech. We employed a multilevel extension of lag-sequential analysis (Howe et al., 2005) to examine parents’ responsiveness to toddler cries relative to toddler verbalizations, the effect of parents’ responses on toddlers’ subsequent communicative behaviors, and the extent to which cries initiated or terminated communication. Table 1 presents transitional probabilities of communication sequences and selected estimates from five multilevel models.

Consistent with some prior studies (e.g., Kochanksa & Aksan, 2004), parent speech was significantly less likely to follow toddler cries relative to toddler verbalizations, and toddler cries were unlikely to initiate conversation. However, toddler cries were also unlikely to terminate conversation. Moreover, if parent speech followed toddler cries, toddlers tended to verbalize next, rather than continue crying. Thus, although parents were less verbally responsive to toddler cries, if parents did respond, their responses seemed to facilitate toddlers’ shift from emotional to verbal communication. Post hoc analyses suggested that toddlers with higher language ability more readily made this shift (Figure 1).

Interestingly, when parents responded to toddler verbalizations, although toddlers most often verbalized again, toddlers cried next at above chance levels. That is, parents sometimes elicited toddlers’ negative emotions and were especially likely to do so when responding to toddler’s verbal bids. These results highlight the transactional nature of parent-toddler communication.

We draw on these findings to underscore the value of studying the interplay of emotional and language communication and development, and to generate discussion about next steps in such research. For example, how parents and other caregivers respond to toddlers’ negative emotions may influence both toddler language and emotional development. Moreover, toddler and parent characteristics, and communicative context, warrant consideration. Finally, we highlight the benefits of using ambulatory, automated processing tools, which enable measuring the dynamic, bidirectional communicative and regulatory processes in which toddlers’ everyday negative emotions unfold over the course of a day.

Authors

• Margaret A Fields-Olivieri, The Pennsylvania State University
  Presenting Author

• Pamela M. Cole, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author