How Chatty Are Daddies? An Exploratory Study of Infants' Language Environments

Autor/inn/en	Shapiro, Naomi Tachikawa; Hippe, Daniel S.; Ramírez, Naja Ferjan
Titel	How Chatty Are Daddies? An Exploratory Study of Infants' Language Environments
Quelle	In: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 64 (2021) 8, S.3242-3252 (11 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Shapiro, Naomi Tachikawa)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1092-4388
Schlagwörter	Fathers; Infants; Family Environment; Parent Child Relationship; Toddlers; Age Differences; Gender Differences; Mothers; Verbal Communication; Child Language; Language Acquisition; Predictor Variables; Washington (Seattle) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Infant; Toddler; Toddlers; Kleinkind; Familienmilieu; Parents-child relationship; Parent-child-relation; Parent-child relationship; Eltern-Kind-Beziehung; Infants; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; Geschlechterkonflikt; Mother; Mutter; 'Children''s language'; Kindersprache; Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; Prädiktor
Abstract	Purpose: Fathers play a critical but underresearched role in their children's cognitive and linguistic development. Focusing on two-parent families with a mother and a father, the present longitudinal study explores the amount of paternal input infants hear during the first 2 years of life, how this input changes over time, and how it relates to child volubility. We devote special attention to parentese, a near-universal style of infant-directed speech, distinguished by its higher pitch, slower tempo, and exaggerated intonation. Method: We examined the daylong recordings of the same 23 infants at ages 6, 10, 14, 18, and 24 months, given English-speaking families. The infants were recorded in the presence of their parents (mother-father dyads), who were predominantly White and ranged from mid to high socioeconomic status (SES). We analyzed the effects of parent gender and child age on adult word counts and parentese, as well as the effects of maternal and paternal word counts and parentese on child vocalizations. Results: On average, the infants were exposed to 46.8% fewer words and 51.9% less parentese from fathers than from mothers, even though paternal parentese grew at a 2.8-times faster rate as the infants aged. An asymmetry emerged where maternal word counts and paternal parentese predicted child vocalizations, but paternal word counts and maternal parentese did not. Conclusions: While infants may hear less input from their fathers than their mothers in predominantly White, mid-to-high SES, English-speaking households, paternal parentese still plays a unique role in their linguistic development. Future research on sources of variability in child language outcomes should thus control for parental differences since parents' language can differ substantially and differentially predict child language. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. 2200 Research Blvd #250, Rockville, MD 20850. Tel: 301-296-5700; Fax: 301-296-8580; e-mail: slhr@asha.org; Web site: http://jslhr.pubs.asha.org
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01