Abstract Title
Maternal-infant Reciprocity in Affect and Language and Later Vocabulary Ability
Additional Funding Sources
This work was supported by the Idaho State University Departments of Psychology and Physical/Occupational Therapy, College of Arts & Letters, and by a 2018-2019 STEM Undergraduate Research Grant from the Higher Education Research Council.
Abstract
Objectives: Infants’ future relationships, social emotional skills, and behaviors are influenced by early caregiver interactions. In fact, vocabulary acquisition is robustly related to the quality and quantity of caregiver input. However, studies examining caregiver sensitivity to infant affect and directed utterances toward infants in relation to child expressive and receptive language are needed, which are the current study aims.
Study Design: In a sample of 16 caregiver-infant/child dyads, Spearman’s correlations were computed to determine if increased frequency and duration of caregiver sensitivity and/or directed utterances at 8, 12, and 16 months contributed to increased infant 16-month receptive and expressive vocabulary.
Results: Results were null, but medium to large effect sizes were found for associations between greater 8- and 12-month frequency and duration of caregiver directed utterances and greater receptive vocabulary, greater 8-month duration of caregiver utterances at and greater expressive vocabulary, and greater duration of caregiver sensitivity to infant affect at 8, 12, and 16 months and poorer receptive vocabulary.
Conclusions: Null findings may be due to limited statistical power. Future studies should examine these relationships using a larger sample and probe the unexpected direction of effects between caregiver sensitivity and poorer receptive vocabulary.
Maternal-infant Reciprocity in Affect and Language and Later Vocabulary Ability
Objectives: Infants’ future relationships, social emotional skills, and behaviors are influenced by early caregiver interactions. In fact, vocabulary acquisition is robustly related to the quality and quantity of caregiver input. However, studies examining caregiver sensitivity to infant affect and directed utterances toward infants in relation to child expressive and receptive language are needed, which are the current study aims.
Study Design: In a sample of 16 caregiver-infant/child dyads, Spearman’s correlations were computed to determine if increased frequency and duration of caregiver sensitivity and/or directed utterances at 8, 12, and 16 months contributed to increased infant 16-month receptive and expressive vocabulary.
Results: Results were null, but medium to large effect sizes were found for associations between greater 8- and 12-month frequency and duration of caregiver directed utterances and greater receptive vocabulary, greater 8-month duration of caregiver utterances at and greater expressive vocabulary, and greater duration of caregiver sensitivity to infant affect at 8, 12, and 16 months and poorer receptive vocabulary.
Conclusions: Null findings may be due to limited statistical power. Future studies should examine these relationships using a larger sample and probe the unexpected direction of effects between caregiver sensitivity and poorer receptive vocabulary.
Comments
T34