Latina and European-American Mothers’ Language Input Differs as a Function of Mother-Infant Proximity in the Home Environment

• In Event: Parent-Infant Interactions Around the World: What Mother Behaviours Across Socio-Cultural Groups Promote Cognitive and Language Outcomes?

Abstract

Early caregiver-infant interactions are a key training ground for infants’ developing language. In particular, responsive caregiver language extends infants’ engagement with an object and supports infants’ “object-word” mapping. A recent study1 showed that mother-infant physical proximity in European-American families led mothers to talk about objects of infants’ interest. Therefore, varying degrees of physical proximity could contribute to individual differences in quality of language input within and across sociocultural groups, offering a potential target for interventions. Do Latina and European-American mothers’ language input differ as a function of physical proximity to their infants?
Mothers and their 13-to-23-month-old infants were recorded at home during everyday activities. Latinx (N=24) and European-American (EA) dyads (N=23) were recorded for 103 minutes (SD=17.42). Mothers’ language was transcribed word by word in English and/or Spanish at the utterance level. Proximity was coded continuously during the interaction and defined as moments when infants were arms-distance apart for the mother.
Latina mothers were proximal to their infants less often than EA mothers; but Latina mothers generated similar quantity of language compared to EA mothers. Whereas Latina mothers spent 43% of the interaction (SD=20, Mdn=41) proximal to their infants (i.e., average of 25.70 minutes in 1 hour), EA mothers spent 67% of the interaction in proximity (SD=12, Mdn =66) (i.e., average of 39.96 minutes in 1 hour), t(37.07)= -4.97, p<.001. Latina mothers produced on average 619.2 utterances (SD=407.04, median=518.5) per hour whereas EA mother produced on average 797.3 utterances (SD=285.35, median=860) per hour, t(41.28) = -1.74, p=.09. Figure 1 shows large individual differences within each group.
Notably, due to differences in proximity across groups (Figure 2A) and despite similar quantity of language, most Latina mother utterances were produced from afar, whereas most EA mother utterances were produced while proximal (Figure 2B). Latina mothers produced 65% of utterances when proximal (582.2 utterances while proximal vs. 318.8 utterances while not proximal); EA mothers produced 80% utterances when proximal (1258 utterances while proximal vs. 306.5 utterances while not proximal). Therefore, a greater proportion of Latina mother utterances were produced from afar compared to EA mother utterances, t(30.49)=-5.09, p< .001.
Nonetheless, the normalized quantity of mother utterances per minute of proximity did not differ across groups, (p=0.23, Figure 2C). Latina mothers produced on average 24.57 utterances (SD=10.44, Mdn=23.68) in a minute of proximity whereas EA mothers produced on average 21.58 utterances (SD=6.07, Mdn=20.10).
To conclude, Latina mothers differed from EA mothers with respect to base rates of proximity and thus the proportion of utterances generated from afar. Because the rate of utterances per minute of proximity did not differ, Latina and EA mothers may offer similar quantity of language when they are proximal to the infant. Ongoing analyses examine quality differences in mother language by proximity. This work reinforces the role of proximity for relevant language input across sociocultural groups and suggests early interventions could likely improve the quality of language input by encouraging mothers to remain proximal to their infants during everyday activities at home.

Authors

• Catalina Suarez-Rivera, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Catherine S Tamis-Lemonda, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author