Stability and Variation in Caregivers’ use of Infant-Directed Communication

• In Event: Caregiver-child interaction

Abstract

Everyday caregiver-infant interactions are dynamic and multimodal. While the quality and quantity of infant-directed speech (IDS) has received primary focus in much research on infants’ natural interactions with caregivers, everyday caregiver-infant interactions involve much more than speech alone (e.g., Brand et al., 2002; Iverson et al., 1999; Wu et al., 2021; Stack & Muir, 1990). Our goal is to augment research on IDS by investigating “infant-directed communication” (IDC): the suite of communicative signals from caregivers to infants including speech, action, gesture, emotion, and touch. Across two studies, we examined: (1) how caregivers use overlapping dimensions of IDC during everyday interactions with infants, (2) how caregivers’ use of IDC is dynamically modulated by infants’ behavior, and (3) how caregivers’ use of IDC varies across everyday activity contexts.

A total of 84 caregivers and their 18- to 30-month-old infants participated in our studies. These families were predominantly white, middle-class caregiver-infant dyads in the United States. In Study 1 (N = 44), caregivers and infants were recorded (via Zoom) during a single interaction in which caregivers were asked to gather a few toys and play with their infant as they normally would. In Study 2 (N = 40), caregivers and infants were recorded a total of six times; during playtime, mealtime, and book sharing on two different days. All videos were coded for caregivers’ use of each of the five dimensions of IDC (speech, action, gesture, emotion, and touch) as well as infants’ vocalizations and gestures using extensively detailed and previously-validated methods.

Across both studies, we found that multiple, overlapping dimensions of infant-directed communication occurred throughout the entire interaction. There are three key findings. First, significantly more than half of the speech that infants heard (M = 64%, SD = 12%) overlapped with one or more non-speech cues, p < .001. Second, we found that the number of overlapping multimodal cues from caregivers increased sharply in response to infant vocalizations (p < .02) and gestures (p < .001; see Figure1). Finally, while individual caregivers tend to use overlapping communicative cues in similar ways within an activity context, the use of these cues varies across both activity contexts and caregivers (see Figure 2).

Though speech has received a predominant focus in research investigating everyday communication between caregivers and infants, our results demonstrate that focusing on speech alone fails to provide a full picture of the natural dynamics of everyday caregiver-infant interactions. Caregivers frequently use overlapping speech and non-speech cues, and in fact tailor their use of IDC to their infant’s communicative behaviors, likely in a way that enhances learning over time. We identify both stability and variation in caregivers’ use of IDC across days and contexts. Individual caregivers use IDC similarly on two different days within a context, but the use of IDC varies across contexts and across caregivers. This finding perhaps reflects caregivers’ adaptation of cues to their own infants’ needs in each unique context. We conclude that the multidimensionality of IDC is necessary both for theory-building and for understanding the real nature of individual differences across infants’ communicative environments.

Authors

• Jessica Elizabeth Kosie, Princeton University
  Presenting Author

• Casey Lew-Williams, Princeton University