3-170 - Determining the features of child directed speech that best promote early language learning.

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Early language development occurs in the context of meaningful interaction between caregiver and child. Caregivers scaffold learning by eliciting and responding to their child’s communicative acts (Bruner, 1983). Individual differences in the extent to which parents do this predict language development (e.g., Hoff, 2006; Tamis-LeMonda, Kuchirko & Song, 2014). These findings have started to form the basis of interventions aimed at improving children’s language skills before they arrive at school. However, studies testing the effectiveness of such interventions in population-based samples of children with language delay have consistently been discouraging (e.g., Wake et al, 2011). Thus, it would be highly beneficial to pinpoint which features of child directed speech are most helpful in supporting language development and which are most amenable to intervention. The presentations in this symposium achieve this by considering multiple features of the child directed speech produced in socio-economically diverse families in Australia, the UK and the USA. Presentation 1 reports an analysis of low-income mothers’ and fathers’ speech with their 24-month-olds. It highlights the uniquely important role of fathers’ WH-questions in predicting toddler vocabulary. Presentation 2 reports an analysis of maternal responsive linguistic input in a large community-based sample of slow-to-talk toddlers. It provides the strongest evidence to date that expansions predict language ability. Presentation 3 reports an RCT that tests whether increasing parental responsiveness benefits infants’ language learning. The discussant will comment on why the forms of elicitation and response presented are particularly beneficial for language development.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Danielle Matthews, University of Sheffield

Discussant

• Aylin C Küntay, Koc University

Individual Presentations

• The unique role of fathers’ wh-questions in toddlers’ vocabulary development - Presenting Author: Kathryn Anne Leech, University of Maryland, College Park; Meredith L. Rowe, Harvard Grad School of Ed; Virginia Charlotte Salo, University of Maryland, College Park; Natasha Cabrera, University of Maryland

• Maternal Responsive Linguistic Input Predicts Child Language at age 4 in a Community-Based Sample of Slow-to-Talk Toddlers - Presenting Author: Penny Levickis, University of Melbourne; Melissa Wake, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Parkville, AUSTRALIA; Sheena Reilly, Murdoch Childrens’ Research Institute, Melbourne; Obioha Ukoumunne, NIHR CLAHRC South West Peninsula, University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, UK

• An RCT to test the causal role of caregiver contingent talk in the language learning of high and low SES infants. - Michelle McGillion, University of Sheffield; Jane Herbert, Univ of Sheffield; Julian Pine, University of Liverpool; Presenting Author: Danielle Matthews, University of Sheffield