Household CHAOS and Vocabulary Productivity

• In Event: Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Topic - Language, Communication

Abstract

Short-term exposure to environmental distractions has been shown to temporarily compromise cognitive function (Dixon, Salley, & Clements, 2007), but also to mobilize cognitive function on some occasions (Higgins & Turnure, 1984). However, chronic exposure to ambient distractions may have longer-lasting impacts. Considerable research has shown that children’s linguistic development benefits considerably from quality linguistic environments (e.g., Huttenlocher, et al. 1991), but also that chronic poverty probably inhibits linguistic growth (Hart & Risley, 1995). However, with the exception of literal background noise (e.g., McMillan & Saffran, 2016), little research has explored the extent to which middle class environments replete with chronic ambient distractions are associated with very young children’s progress in language development. In this investigation we explored the extent to which being raised in a chronically distracted household during the first couple years of life was associated with toddler’s vocabulary productivity.

Sixty-one primarily white middle class infants (37 girls) were brought into the lab at 15 months (M = 15.08 months), with 34 (20 girls) returning at 21 months (M = 20.88 months). Mean income at first visit was $64,332.78, roughly three times the poverty threshold at the time data were collected. Vocabulary productivity was indexed at both ages using the Bates-MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory: Words and Sentences (CDI; Fenson et al., 2007). We extracted productive vocabulary measures, including nouns, predicates, closed class words, morphology, and irregularizations. The Confusion, Hubbub, and Disorder Scale (CHAOS; Matheny et al., 1995) was used to index ambient household distractions at both ages. Sample items from the CHAOS instrument included: It’s a real zoo in our home and You can’t hear yourself think in our home.

We found that household CHAOS was highly stable from 15 to 21 months (r = .67, p = .00). However, household CHAOS at 15 months was unrelated to vocabulary productivity at either 15 or 21 months. In contrast, 21-month household CHAOS was significantly negatively correlated with a majority of 21-month vocabulary measures, including nouns (r = -.46, p = .01), predicates (r = -.46, p = .01), closed class words (r = -.42, p = 02), morphology (marginally, r = .35, p = .06), and irregularizations (r = -.48, p = .01). Of course, the vocabulary measures were themselves highly intercorrelated (r’s = .66 - .97, p’s = .000).

Although correlations do not imply causation, these findings are consistent with the possibility that highly distracting households negatively impact toddlers’ language development, even in middle income households, and without regard to linguistic input per se. However, the relationship does not seem to come into existence until the middle of the second year; after the so-called vocabulary explosion and during the period of first-word combinations. We were agnostic in our a priori expectations regarding the link between ambient distractions and vocabulary size, because an argument can be made that distractions might mobilize children’s attention toward linguistically relevant stimuli (cf. Ruff & Capozzoli, 2003). However, our data are not consistent with this possibility.

Authors

• Wallace E Dixon, East Tennessee State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Chelsea Robertson, West Liberty University
  Presenting Author