Mother and father language input to young children: Contributions to later language development

There has been little research comparing the nature and contributions of language input of mothers and fathers to their young children. This study examined differences in mother and father talk to their 24 month-old children. This study also considered contributions of parent education, child care quality and mother and father language (output, vocabulary, complexity, questions, and pragmatics) to children's expressive language development at 36 months. It was found that fathers' language input was less than mothers' language input on the following: verbal output, turn length, different word roots, and wh-questions. Mothers and fathers did not differ on type-token ratio, mean length of utterance, or the proportion of questions. At age 36 months, parent level of education, the total quality of child care and paternal different words were significant predictors of child language. Mothers' language was not a significant predictor of child language.     

Infant auditory perception: Tonal masking

The results of an earlier study (Olsho, 1984) indicated that 5- to 8-month-old infants were relatively better at discriminating among high-frequency pitches than low. In the present study, sensory and nonsensory explanations for that effect were evaluated by examining infants' performance in a task requiring similar sensory processing but differing in the demands placed on processes such as memory. Infants' ability to resolve frequency was tested using a tonal masking paradigm, the psychophysical tuning curve. Twenty-four infants were tested at probe frequencies ranging from 500 to 4000 Hz; a group of young adults served as a comparison. Masked and unmasked thresholds were estimated using the visually reinforced head turn procedure in conjunction with an adaptive psychophysical method. Although infants' tuning curves fell below those of adults (indicating poorer performance), the widths and slopes of the infants' curves were not different from the adults'. Moreover, the difference between age groups remained constant across probe frequencies. These findings imply that by 5 months of age, the infant's ability to resolve sound frequency is similar to the adult's.     

大脑电刺激在听觉语言加工研究中的应用

大脑电刺激是历史悠久但近年来才广泛应用在人类被试上的实验技术。通过对颅内刺激位点进行电刺激, 并分析引发的暂时性行为功能变化和记录位点的电位活动, 大脑电刺激技术可以揭示认知加工过程中脑区内的功能作用与脑区间的有效连接。通过对听觉语言加工过程相关的丘脑、听觉皮层、高级语言皮层进行电刺激, 现有研究发现了各个脑区的不同功能特点以及不同脑区间的信息传递机制, 为进一步探索听觉语言加工的神经机制提供了新的视角。     

The use of the mental development index of the Bayley scale to diagnose language delay in 2-year-old high-risk infants

To determine if a detailed analysis of the language items of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) would be useful in detecting language delay, the Bayley Mental Development Index (MDI) and Reynell Developmental Language Scales (RDLS-R) were administered to 137 low-birthweight infants at 2 years of age. In spite of scores in the normal range on the BSID, many of these children had significantly delayed language. However, the children with delayed language could be detected on the basis of detailed analysis of certain language items of the MDI, indicating that these items are more useful than the total MDI score.     

Labels and object categorization in six- and nine-month-olds: tracking labels across varying carrier phrases

Language shapes object categorization in infants. This starts as a general enhanced attentional effect of language, which narrows to a specific link between labels and categories by twelve months. The current experiments examined this narrowing effect by investigating when infants track a consistent label across varied input. Six-month-old infants (N = 48) were familiarized to category exemplars, each presented with the exact same labeling phrase or the same label in different phrases. Evidence of object categorization at test was only found with the same phrase, suggesting that infants were not tracking the label’s consistency, but rather that of the entire input. Nine-month-olds (N = 24) did show evidence of categorization across the varied phrases, suggesting that they were tracking the consistent label across the varied input.     

The infant's developmental path in phonological acquisition

Research on how language acquisition begins has been fragmented both in terms of scientific communities and in terms of the phenomena that are taken to characterize developmental progress. In her article, Marilyn Vihman argues for an integrative approach that takes the child's efforts at speech production as primary, and notes that infants' knowledge of how words sound may accrue over a protracted period developmentally. Here, I briefly discuss how reconceptualization of the process can help integrate perspectives previously at odds.     

Pitch direction ability predicts melodic perception in autism

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) often present atypical auditory perception. Previous work has reported both enhanced low-level pitch discrimination and superior abilities to detect local pitch structure on higher-level melodic tasks in ASD. However, it is unclear how low and high levels of auditory perception are related in ASD or typical development (TD), or how this relationship might change across development and stimulus presentation rates. To these aims, in the present study, children with ASD and TD were tested on a low-level pitch direction discrimination task and a high-level melodic global-local task. Groups performed similarly on both of these auditory tasks. Moreover, individual differences in low-level pitch direction ability predicted performance on the higher-level global-local task, with a stronger relationship in ASD. Age did not affect the relationship between low-level and high-level pitch performance in either ASD or TD. However, there was a more positive effect of age on the high-level global-local task performance in TD than ASD. Finally, there was no effect of stimulus rate on the relationship between low-level and high-level pitch performance in either group. These findings provide a better understanding of how perception is associated across levels of processing in ASD versus TD. This work helps to better understand individual differences in auditory perception and to refine ASD phenotypes.     

The effects of a community-based literacy program on young children's language and conceptual development

Effects of a community-based literacy program on 1−, 2−, and 3-year-old children's language and conceptual development were assessed. University students were trained to teach Head Start parents effective methods for reading to their children. Families were randomly assigned to receive 18, 3, or 0 instructional visits. Results indicated that parents in the 18-instructional-visit program increased their participation in appropriate literacy behaviors such as reading to their children, teaching concepts to their children, and using the library, more than parents in the 0-instructional-visit groups. Children in the 18-instructional-visit program showed greater gains in language and conceptual development than children in the 0-instructional-visit group. Few differences were found between children in the 3-visti and 0-instructional-visit groups. Thus, only a high-intensity community-based intervention designed to train parents was effective in increasing emergent literacy in low-income ethnic children. Supported by Commission on National and Community Service grant 92HELOCA0039, the Dr. Seuss Foundation, Head Start, and the College of Sciences at San Diego State University. The authors gratefully acknowledge William A. Hillix, Leah K. Gensheimer, and Larry Fenson for their helpful reviews of drafts of this article, Florence Goldman for her training of tutors in techniques for developing emergent literacy, and the many students who assisted in the implementation and evaluation of this project.     

Prenatal daily musical exposure is associated with enhanced neural representation of speech fundamental frequency: Evidence from neonatal frequency-following responses

Fetal hearing experiences shape the linguistic and musical preferences of neonates. From the very first moment after birth, newborns prefer their native language, recognize their mother's voice, and show a greater responsiveness to lullabies presented during pregnancy. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this experience inducing plasticity have remained elusive. Here we recorded the frequency-following response (FFR), an auditory evoked potential elicited to periodic complex sounds, to show that prenatal music exposure is associated to enhanced neural encoding of speech stimuli periodicity, which relates to the perceptual experience of pitch. FFRs were recorded in a sample of 60 healthy neonates born at term and aged 12–72 hours. The sample was divided into two groups according to their prenatal musical exposure (29 daily musically exposed; 31 not-daily musically exposed). Prenatal exposure was assessed retrospectively by a questionnaire in which mothers reported how often they sang or listened to music through loudspeakers during the last trimester of pregnancy. The FFR was recorded to either a /da/ or an /oa/ speech-syllable stimulus. Analyses were centered on stimuli sections of identical duration (113 ms) and fundamental frequency (F₀ = 113 Hz). Neural encoding of stimuli periodicity was quantified as the FFR spectral amplitude at the stimulus F₀. Data revealed that newborns exposed daily to music exhibit larger spectral amplitudes at F₀ as compared to not-daily musically-exposed newborns, regardless of the eliciting stimulus. Our results suggest that prenatal music exposure facilitates the tuning to human speech fundamental frequency, which may support early language processing and acquisition.

Research Highlights

• Frequency-following responses to speech were collected from a sample of neonates prenatally exposed to music daily and compared to neonates not-daily exposed to music.
• Neonates who experienced daily prenatal music exposure exhibit enhanced frequency-following responses to the periodicity of speech sounds.
• Prenatal music exposure is associated with a fine-tuned encoding of human speech fundamental frequency, which may facilitate early language processing and acquisition.

     

Comparison of extra- and within-stimulus prompting to teach prepositional discriminations to preschool children with developmental disabilities

This study compared extra-stimulus to within-stimulus prompts in teaching children with developmental disabilities to discriminate the prepositional concepts In and On. Five preschool-aged children who had difficulty discriminating verbal instructions participated. Extra-stimulus prompts involved modeling, gestures, positioning, and auditory cues which did not form part of the target discrimination. Within-stimulus prompts manipulated the volume and intonational pattern of the verbal stimuli. Four children did not learn the discrimination with extra-stimulus prompting. All four of these children, plus a fifth child who did not have prior experience with extra-stimulus prompting, reached criterion in the within-stimulus prompting condition. The success of the within-stimulus prompts may be related to their enhancing phonetic differences between the verbal stimuli.     

Baby Wordsmith

ABSTRACT— How do infants acquire their first words? Word reference , or how words map onto objects and events, lies at the core of this question. The emergentist coalition model (ECM) represents a new wave of hybrid developmental theories suggesting that the process of vocabulary development changes from one based in perceptual salience and association to one embedded in social understanding. Beginning at 10 months, babies learn words associatively, ignoring the speaker's social cues and using perceptual salience to guide them. By 12 months, babies attend to social cues, but fail to recruit them for word learning. By 18 and 24 months, babies recruit speakers' social cues to learn the names of particular objects speakers label, regardless of those objects' perceptual attraction. Controversies about how to account for the changing character of word acquisition, along with the roots of children's increasing reliance on speakers' social intent, are discussed.     

Developmental Changes in Visual and Auditory Inhibition in Early Childhood

The development of executive functions in the preschool years is not fully understood. Although there exists a large body of research investigating the maturation of executive functioning in school‐aged children, little is known about the emergence of such skills, in particular inhibition, among preschool‐aged children. Understanding developmental changes of inhibition proficiencies and deficiencies early in childhood is important for charting typical and atypical developmental trajectories. Using an adapted computerized paradigm, the present study examined age‐related changes in visual and auditory inhibition in 68 typically developing children aged 3 to 6 years. The results indicated that although similar age‐related gains in performance occurred across both visual and auditory inhibition tasks, certain modality‐specific differences emerged in terms of accuracy and reaction time. These results suggest that the newly adapted measures used are sensitive enough to capture developmental variations in inhibition. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of language in mathematical development: evidence from children with specific language impairments

A sample (n=48) of eight-year-olds with specific language impairments is compared with age-matched (n=55) and language matched controls (n=55) on a range of tasks designed to test the interdependence of language and mathematical development. Performance across tasks varies substantially in the SLI group, showing profound deficits in production of the count word sequence and basic calculation and significant deficits in understanding of the place-value principle in Hindu-Arabic notation. Only in understanding of arithmetic principles does SLI performance approximate that of age-matched-controls, indicating that principled understanding can develop even where number sequence production and other aspects of number processing are severely compromised.     

Gesture Reflects Language Development: Evidence From Bilingual Children

There is a growing awareness that language and gesture are deeply intertwined in the spontaneous expression of adults. Although some research suggests that children use gesture independently of speech, there is scant research on how language and gesture develop in children older than 2 years. We report here on a longitudinal investigation of the relation between gesture and language development in French-English bilingual children from 2 to 3 1/2 years old. The specific gesture types of iconics and beats correlated with the development of the children's two languages, whereas pointing types of gestures generally did not. The onset of iconic and beat gestures coincided with the onset of sentencelike utterances separately in each of the children's two languages. The findings show that gesture is related to language development rather than being independent from it. Contrasting theories about how gesture is related to language development are discussed.