Poster #57 - Characterizing Daily Activity Structures and Linguistic Experiences of Bangladeshi Children in Low Resource Settings

• In Event: Poster Session 14

Abstract

In the first years of a child’s life, their experiences in the family environment have been recognized to play a key role in brain development (De Bellis, 2001). Moreover, the home environment, characterized by parent-child interactions, linguistic input, and daily activities (Black et al., 2017; Orri et al., 2019), is associated with the development of cognitive skills such as language, verbal intelligence, and cognitive flexibility (Obradović et al., 2016; Sarsour et al., 2011). Furthermore, studies have shown that family socioeconomic conditions and resource availability have a significant influence on the development of cognitive functions (Sarsour et al., 2011). Thus, in the current study, we seek to characterize the daily activities and linguistic experiences of developing children who live in low-resource environments in Dhaka, Bangladesh. To highlight the cultural uniqueness of Dhaka children’s experiences in the home environment, we take a cross-cultural perspective by comparing the daily experiences of Dhaka children against children living in Boston, US.
Families with 12- and 36-month-olds from Boston (n_12m = 9) and Dhaka (n_12m = 29; n_36m = 38; note that Dhaka 36-month-olds show low weight for height) participated in the present study (data collection and analysis in progress). Full day (16 hour) digital recordings were collected using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system, which captures the number of adult words and child vocalizations, conversational turns, exposure to electronics, environmental noise, and silence. We categorized daily activities into four types: child-directed speech, distant sounds, TV/media exposure, and napping.
For both Boston and Dhaka, we observed substantive individual differences in the daily activity structures as well as in the daily count for adult words, child vocalizations, and conversational turns within each of the three groups. We also compared the daily activity distribution and linguistic experiences between Boston and Dhaka cohorts at 12 months. Exploratory analyses suggested that relative to Dhaka children, Boston children heard more words from caretakers around them, engaged in more conversational turns with adults, and produced a larger number of vocalizations, all ps < .05. For both Boston and Dhaka children (in both 12-month and 36-month cohorts), adult language exposure was positively associated with child language production, ps < .05, and adult language input showed positive correlation with total daily conversational turns, ps < .05. Collectively, the findings underscored notable cross-cultural differences in input patterns, which may reflect differing child-rearing beliefs and practices between Boston and Dhaka families. Despite cross-cultural variation in input, across cultural communities, adult linguistic input was robustly associated with child vocalization, suggesting that Boston and Dhaka children who were exposed to richer linguistic input may have produced more vocalizations or words. Ongoing analyses examine associations between adult linguistic input and neuroimaging measures of child cognitive development.

Authors

• Emily Yedam Yang, Harvard Medical School
  Presenting Author

• Anne Nields, Boston Children’s Hospital

• Ran Wei, Harvard Medical School

• Talat Shama, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh

• Terrence Forrester, The University of the West Indies, Mona

• Rashidul Haque, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh

• Charles A. Nelson, Harvard Medical School