Unique Contributions of Fathers, Mothers and Children to Language Skills in the First Years.

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Even before children can talk, parents play a crucial role in promoting their language skills, and day-a-day caregiver-child interactions are powerful features of infants’ early language-learning environments (Rowe, 2012). The literature has examined type, quality, and quantity of language input children are exposed to during parent-child interactions; but the specific importance of each aspect in children´s language ability is still discussed. Moreover, studies have shown that fathers and mothers may interact differently with their children, contributing in unique ways to their development (Malin et al., 2014), and recent research has begun to investigate not only parental behavior, but also how infants’ early skills may facilitate contingent interactions with caregivers. More fine-grained analysis is needed to understand what specific features of this back-and-forth communicative interactions between parents and children help them to learn language. In the proposed paper symposium, we provide a coherent approach to the language environment of young children and examine how different aspects of it relate to children´s language development. Paper 1 examines how infant attentional skills relate to social contingency during caregiver-child interactions and to language skills at 6-12-18-months; paper 2 examines how mother/father-child back-and-forth social exchanges relate to children´s language skills at 18-months in a sample of low SES families. Finally, paper 3 focuses on the quality and quantity of fathers´ and mothers´ input with their 3-year-old children and how each aspect relates to child vocabulary development. Taken together, these papers deepen our understanding of specific parenting practices that contribute to language development.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Fernanda Prieto, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD)

Discussant

• Kathy A Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University

Individual Presentations

• Attending to Learn: Longitudinal Associations Between Infant Attention, Caregiver-Child Interaction Quality, and Language Development - Presenting Author: Lillian Masek, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Elizabeth V. Edgar, Yale University; Non-Presenting Author: Brianna McMillan, Smith College; Non-Presenting Author: James Torrence Todd, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Roberta M Golinkoff, University of Delaware; Non-Presenting Author: Lorraine E. Bahrick, Florida International University; Non-Presenting Author: Kathy A Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University

• Low-Income Fathers’ and Mothers’ “Serve and Return” Interactions with Infants: Link to Early Language Development - Presenting Author: Yu Chen, New York University School of Medicine; Non-Presenting Author: Natasha J Cabrera, University of Maryland - College Park; Non-Presenting Author: Audrey Sauer; Non-Presenting Author: Taylor Horowitz, Duke University; Non-Presenting Author: Stephanie M Reich, University of California - Irvine

• Mothers’ and Fathers´ Language Quality and Vocabulary Development of 3-year-old Children - Presenting Author: Fernanda Prieto, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD); Non-Presenting Author: Daniela Aldoney, Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD)