Poster #116 - Measuring word recognition: Can the Preferential Looking Paradigm reliably test individual differences?

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

Previous work suggests that typically-developing infants successfully recognize familiar words by the time they are 6 months (e.g., Tincoff & Jusczyk, 2012, Bergelson & Swingley, 2012). These studies rely on the Preferential Looking Paradigm (Golinkoff et al., 2013), which is ideal for studying early language development because it does not demand overt responses but instead measures eye gaze. One major limitation, however, is that prior work has focused on evaluating group effects. Is this paradigm reliable for measuring word recognition abilities in individual children over time? We ask this question in the context of a larger project designed to assess typical infants and infants who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, who differ with respect to etiology and degree of hearing loss. Knowing the answer to this question would enable us to better understand how the degree of hearing loss relates to vocabulary development. This information could inform interventions and influence children’s linguistic and academic outcomes.

We examined the reliability of a word recognition task used by Tincoff and Jusczyk (2012) by having typical infants complete the task at 6, 9, and 12 months in the presence or absence of background noise. Children’s environments typically contain competing auditory information. Hence, examining word comprehension under different listening conditions provides information about children’s ability to process enough details in speech to identify words. At each visit, participants saw pictures of two items (hand and feet) and heard speech stimuli instructing them to locate one of the items in the pair in either Noisy trials (with white noise heard at an 8dB signal-to-noise ratio) or Quiet trials (without background noise). A vocabulary measure was obtained at each visit and at 15-months using the MCDI.

Twenty-three infants are currently enrolled. Initial time-course analyses of group performance for the 6- and 9-month visits suggest that both the specific word tested and the demands associated with the task contribute to children’s performance. As shown in Figures 1 and 2, average accuracy is higher for the word feet (Visit 1: M = 0.61, SD = 0.14; Visit 2: M = 0.58, SD = 0.16) compared to hand (Visit 1: M = 0.46, SD = 0.10; Visit 2: M = 0.54 , SD = 0.10). Specifically, hearing feet in noise (Visit 1: M = 0.71, SD = 0.10; Visit 2: M = 0.71, SD = 0.10) seemingly leads to better performance than hearing feet in quiet (Visit 1: M = 0.51, SD = 0.07; Visit 2: M = 0.45, SD = 0.08)– suggesting that the background noise increases children’s attention. While overall group patterns appear to be consistent at 6 and 9 months, reliability measures that consider individual performance are not significant (p = 0.453 feet in noise, p = 0.097 feet in quiet). We will discuss implications of these findings for developing clinically useful assessment tools for infant speech perception and possible modifications to improve test-retest reliability. Data from the 12-month visit, individual analyses, and correlations with vocabulary outcomes will be available by the time of the conference.

Authors

• Emily Fritzson, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Hannah Puttre, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Giovanna Morini, University of Delaware
  Non-Presenting Author

• Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Univ of DE
  Non-Presenting Author

• Thierry Morlet, Nemours A. I. DuPont Children's Hospital
  Non-Presenting Author

• Derek Houston, The Ohio State University and Nationwide Children's Hospital
  Non-Presenting Author