Mothers' and fathers' speech to infants in a teaching situation

The purpose of this study was to compare mothers' and fathers' speech to their preverbal infants in a teaching situation. Thirty-two parents of 16 8-month-olds were asked to teach their infants to put a small cube into a cup. Infant Gender (2) x Birth Order (2) x Parent (2) analyses of variance were performed with repeated measures on parent. Results indicated that fathers issued more utterances and used more words per utterance than did mothers. Although there was no difference in the proportion of imperatives used by mothers and fathers, fathers' imperatives were significantly longer than mothers'; this difference was not evident for utterances that contained indirect instructions. Mothers tended to use more exact repetitions. There were differences in parental speech related to infant gender: Parents directed more utterances, particularly utterances that contained negative statements, imperatives, and exhortations, to girls than to boys. Infant Gender x Parent effects for imperatives and exhortations indicated that these differences were especially true for fathers. Overall, it appeared that fathers made greater efforts to control the situation and to direct their infants' behavior, which might have reflected mothers' and fathers' different perceptions of both their infants' ability and their own role as teachers.     

Verbal contingent stimulation of stuttering in laboratory and home settings

The effect of verbal contingent stimulation for stuttering behaviors was examined during changes of stimulus delivery mode and experimental setting. In Experiment I, contingent stimuli were delivered in the laboratory setting with the experimenter and subject in a face-to-face arrangement versus presentations by the experimenter from a control room via a headset arrangement. In Experiment II, contingent stimulation of stuttering was examined in the laboratory and home setting. Findings revealed that stuttering frequency was reduced in all conditions of both experiments. However, the only significant reductions occurred under the headset delivery conditions in the laboratory setting.     

A comparison of mothers' and fathers' speech to their 3-year-old sons

The language patterns of 10 mothers and 10 fathers with their firstborn 3-year-old sons were compared. Ten-minute mother-son and father-son conversations were recorded independently in the home during a free-play session with standard play mterials. The findings of this study indicate that although mothers and fathers used a similar number of utterances in conversing with their sons over a 10-minute period, their patterns of speech were different on a number of quantitative measures including MLU, MLU of five longest utterances, percent of imperatives, and percent of questions. In general, fathers' communication was viewed as more controlling and involving the child less, while mothers' communication was viewed as more child-centered and involving the child more.     

Mothers' speech to children of four different ages

This study reports analyses, in terms of five different measures, of the speech on two standard tasks of 32 middle-class mothers to their children aged 1 1/2, 2 1/2, 4, and 6 years. Sex and birth order of child were not found to be related to mothers' speech. On four of the measures, both task and age of child had strongly significant effects. In general, with increasing age of child, mothers spoke more, in longer and grammatically more complex utterances, with greater diversity of vocabulary. The differences in speech addressed to 1 1/2-year-olds and that addressed to 2 1/2-year-olds were particularly marked.     

Mothers' speech in three social classes

Functional and linguistic aspects of the speech of Dutch-speaking mothers from three social classes to their 2-year-old children were studied. Mothers' speech in Dutch showed the same characteristics of simplicity and redundancy found in other languages. In a free play situation, both academic and lower middle class mothers produced more expansions and used fewer imperatives, more substantive deixis, and fewer modal verbs than working-class mothers. These differences were not present while mothers were reading books with their children. In general, the mothers' speech was more complex in the book reading situation than during free play.     

Didactic adjustments in fathers' and mothers' speech to their 3-month-old infants

Vocal dialogues of 3-month-old infants with their mothers and fathers were recorded during dyadic interactions in the laboratory. Six-minute speech samples were analyzed for syntacticlexical and temporal-melodic features. Both parents adopted strikingly similar speech registers. Segmentation, reduction in syntactic complexity, repetitiveness, and slow tempo were more marked than reported for parental speech to children above 1 year. However, rather than providing proper linguistic models, parents utilized simplified patterns of expressive melodic contours as the most salient units of speech. This tendency is interpretable as age-specific adjustment to infants' integrative capacities. Structural similarities between maternal and paternal baby talk by far outweighed a few quantitative differences. The intuitive nature of recourse to basic nonverbal properties of vocal communication, together with universality across sex, favors the assumption that baby talk is a part of species-specific didactic support to infant communicative development.     

Mothers' depressed mood and anxiety levels are reduced after massaging their preterm infants

Forty mothers whose preterm infants were about to be discharged from the Neonatal Intermediate Care Nursery (NICU) were randomly assigned to two groups: the first group of mothers conducted preterm infant massage and the second group only observed their preterm infants receiving massage. Both groups of mothers had lower depressed mood scores following the session. However, only the group who massaged their infants had lower anxiety scores after the session.     

Maternal speech to infants at 1 and 3 months of age

The goal of this study was to assess maternal speech and in relation to changes in infant social behavior occurring around the second month post birth. Sixty infants interacted with their mother at 1 and 3 months of age in a face-to-face context. At 3 months, infants gazed, smiled, and positively vocalized significantly more than at 1 month. These findings point to a transition in infant social behavior at around the second month post birth. In addition, maternal speech to infants increased between these times in both amount and complexity, possibly in response to an increase in infant social behavior. Maternal speech was related to infant positive vocalizing at 3 months, suggesting mothers especially monitored infant vocalizing at 3 months. Individual differences in maternal speech were stable across visits.     

Signature tunes in mothers' speech to infants

The purpose of the present investigation was to determine whether mothers use discernible tunes (i.e., specific interval sequences) in their speech to infants and whether such tunes are individually distinctive. Mothers were recorded speaking with their infants on two occasions separated by 1 week or more. Examination of the tunes of each mother revealed discernible tunes and frequent repetitions of tunes within and across sessions. Comparisons of utterances with the most common pitch contour (i.e., rising), both within and across mothers, revealed interval patterns that were individually distinctive, or unique. The findings confirm the prominence of tunes and the presence of signature tunes in maternal speech to infants.     

Fathers' and mothers' speech to young infants

Fathers' and mothers' speech to infants was obtained during face-to-face interaction in a laboratory setting. Thirty-two father-infant pairs and 40 mother-infant pairs participated. Infants were divided equally by sex and among two age groups with mean ages of 3 and 9 months. Parental utterances were transcribed from videotapes. The utterances were analyzed in terms of their structure and content. There were many similarities in the structure of fathers' and mothers' speech. The speech of both parents was highly repetitive and contained many questions. There were also similarities in the content of fathers' and mothers' speech. Their belief in the infants' ability to think, feel, and act like persons was evident in their speech to the infants. The age of the infant was a significant factor in the analysis of many of the content categories. The sex of the infant and the sex of the parent were also significant factors in several of the analyses.This paper is based on a thesis submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree. Some of the data reported here were obtained under a grant from the Spencer Foundation to the second author.     

Hemodynamic responses to speech and music in preverbal infants

Numerous studies have provided clues about the ontogeny of lateralization of auditory processing in humans, but most have employed specific subtypes of stimuli and/or have assessed responses in discrete temporal windows. The present study used near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to establish changes in hemodynamic activity in the neocortex of preverbal infants (aged 4–11 months) while they were exposed to two distinct types of complex auditory stimuli (full sentences and musical phrases). Measurements were taken from bilateral temporal regions, including both anterior and posterior superior temporal gyri. When the infant sample was treated as a homogenous group, no significant effects emerged for stimulus type. However, when infants’ hemodynamic responses were categorized according to their overall changes in volume, two very clear neurophysiological patterns emerged. A high-responder group showed a pattern of early and increasing activation, primarily in the left hemisphere, similar to that observed in comparable studies with adults. In contrast, a low-responder group showed a pattern of gradual decreases in activation over time. Although age did track with responder type, no significant differences between these groups emerged for stimulus type, suggesting that the high- versus low-responder characterization generalizes across classes of auditory stimuli. These results highlight a new way to conceptualize the variable cortical blood flow patterns that are frequently observed across infants and stimuli, with hemodynamic response volumes potentially serving as an early indicator of developmental changes in auditory-processing sensitivity.     

Mothers' and fathers' changing perceptions of their male and female infants over the course of pregnancy

Twelve pregnant women and their spouses who had undergone ultrasonography and knew their child's gender were compared with 12 pregnant women and their spouses who had undergone ultrasonography but did not know their child's gender. Parents were interviewed (a) prior to receiving the ultrasound, (b) immediately after the ultrasound, and (c) following their infant's birth. Using the adjectives rating scales, and replicating the procedures developed by Rubin, Provenzano, and Luria (1974), parents' perceptions of their infants were measured. ANOVA results indicated that parents viewed their infants to be softer, finer, littler, cuddlier, easier, calmer, more inactive, more beautiful, more awkward, quieter, weaker, and somewhat more delicate following birth than during the preceding measurement period(s). Mothers viewed their infants to be softer, more nervous, more fussy, more excitable, and more noisy than did fathers. Supporting Rubin et al.'s (1974) findings, several differences emerged between parents' perceptions of boys and girls, particularly by the time the infants were born. Following birth, parents perceived girls to be finer, smaller, less coordinated, quieter, weaker, and more delicate than boys. No differences were found as a result of parents being informed of their infants' gender prior to birth.     

Challenges of home visitor interventions with adolescent mothers and their infants

Issues in designing a home visitor intervention and research program for 130 adolescent mothers, 17 and under, and their infants from birth to 30 months are discussed. The overall project is described, and various aspects of creating and maintaining a home visitor intervention program are discussed, including: (1) Issues and problems that arise with the integration of a home visitor intervention component into an ongoing health department program; (2) the recruitment and training of lay home visitors in the context of arduous, often disheartening work; (3) issues of supervision and quality control faced by the mental health consultants; (4) coping with potential stresses and dangers faced by the home visitors; (5) assisting and maintaining maximum communication for the research components of the study to be successful.     

New Zealand Maori and European mothers and their 3-year-old children: Interactive behaviors in pre-school settings

The interactive behaviors used by 34 indigenous Polynesian and 41 European mothers were observed during spontaneous play sessions at New Zealand pre-schools. Mothers from higher and lower education-level backgrounds were included in each of the two ethnic groups and the mothers were videotaped with their 3-year-old sons or daughters. Maternal interactive behaviors were subsequently coded using Zegiob and Forehand's (1975) measure. Overall, the incidence of maternal interactions in command form was high. Marked individual differences within groups, and some important between-group differences, were evident on several behaviors, but child gender was not associated with major variations in maternal interactive behavior. The results affirmed, in the New Zealand context, the association between mothers' education levels and their interactive behavior, and here, the control of maternal education level and type of pre-school attended worked against “deficit” interpretations.     

Mothers' and fathers' behaviors toward their 3- to 4-month-old infants in lower, middle, and upper socioeconomic African American families

African American mothers' and fathers' availability, caregiving, and social behaviors toward their infants in and around their homes were examined. Twenty lower, 21 middle, and 21 upper socioeconomic families and their 3- to 4-month-old infants were observed for 4 3-hr blocks between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. on 4 different weekdays. With increasing economic resources, children's exposure to multiple caregivers and nonresident fathers declined. Mothers were more available to infants than fathers were, regardless of socioeconomic status. Mothers fed infants more than fathers did, whereas fathers vocalized more and displayed more affection to infants than mothers did when they were examined in proportion to caregiver presence. Mothers and fathers interacted with male and female infants quite similarly, although, in the upper socioeconomic families, fathers of daughters were more available than fathers of sons. Fathers and mothers in the different socioeconomic groups held, displayed affection to, and soothed their infants differently.     

The identification of names in maternal speech to infants

Mothers' speech to 14-month-old infants was recorded during a free-play session. The findings suggest that this speech contained a number of characteristics which could facilitate the identification of names from the other words in an utterance; names were frequently the loudest word of an utterance and were highly likely to be positioned at the end of utterances. Thus, infants appear to receive a verbal input which may help them to identify semantically important words.This research was supported by an S.S.R.C. grant to H. R. Schaffer, Dept. of Psychology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland.     

How infants begin to extract words from speech

A crucial step for acquiring a native language vocabulary is the ability to segment words from fluent speech. English-learning infants first display some ability to segment words at about 7.5 months of age. However, their initial attempts at segmenting words only approximate those of fluent speakers of the language. In particular, 7.5-month-old infants are able to segment words that conform to the predominant stress pattern of English words. The ability to segment words with other stress patterns appears to require the use of other sources of information about word boundaries. By 10.5 months, English learners display sensitivity to additional cues to word boundaries such as statistical regularities, allophonic cues and phonotactic patterns. Infants’ word segmentation abilities undergo further development during their second year when they begin to link sound patterns with particular meanings. By 24 months, the speed and accuracy with which infants recognize words in fluent speech is similar to that of native adult listeners. This review describes how infants use multiple sources of information to locate word boundaries in fluent speech, thereby laying the foundations for language understanding.     

Mothers' attributions and expectancies regarding their conduct-disordered children

As an extension of Patterson's family coercion model, we hypothesized that parental attributions about the causes of child misbehavior and parental expectancies concerning the effectiveness of parenting techniques are involved in the establishment and maintenance of coercive exchanges. Mothers of 40 conduct-disordered children and 40 matched control children completed questionnaires measuring their attributions regarding the causes of their children's misbehavior and their expectations concerning the general and personal effectiveness of parenting techniques. Results supported the hypotheses: parents of conduct-disordered children were more likely to regard their children's misbehavior as intentional and to attribute it to stable, global causes beyond the parents' control. They also were less likely to see their own parenting as effective. We speculate that these parents hold cognitive stances of blame and helplessness that contribute to aversive parent behavior as well as to parent withdrawal in the face of escalating child aggressiveness.This article is based on a doctoral dissertation conducted by Anne Davison Baden while at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and was presented in part at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, August 1989.     

Visual speech contributes to phonetic learning in 6-month-old infants

Previous research has shown that infants match vowel sounds to facial displays of vowel articulation [Kuhl, P. K., & Meltzoff, A. N. (1982). The bimodal perception of speech in infancy. Science, 218, 1138–1141; Patterson, M. L., & Werker, J. F. (1999). Matching phonetic information in lips and voice is robust in 4.5-month-old infants. Infant Behaviour & Development, 22, 237–247], and integrate seen and heard speech sounds [Rosenblum, L. D., Schmuckler, M. A., & Johnson, J. A. (1997). The McGurk effect in infants. Perception & Psychophysics, 59, 347–357; Burnham, D., & Dodd, B. (2004). Auditory-visual speech integration by prelinguistic infants: Perception of an emergent consonant in the McGurk effect. Developmental Psychobiology, 45, 204–220]. However, the role of visual speech in language development remains unknown. Our aim was to determine whether seen articulations enhance phoneme discrimination, thereby playing a role in phonetic category learning. We exposed 6-month-old infants to speech sounds from a restricted range of a continuum between /ba/ and /da/, following a unimodal frequency distribution. Synchronously with these speech sounds, one group of infants (the two-category group) saw a visual articulation of a canonical /ba/ or /da/, with the two alternative visual articulations, /ba/ and /da/, being presented according to whether the auditory token was on the /ba/ or /da/ side of the midpoint of the continuum. Infants in a second (one-category) group were presented with the same unimodal distribution of speech sounds, but every token for any particular infant was always paired with the same syllable, either a visual /ba/ or a visual /da/. A stimulus-alternation preference procedure following the exposure revealed that infants in the former, and not in the latter, group discriminated the /ba/–/da/ contrast. These results not only show that visual information about speech articulation enhances phoneme discrimination, but also that it may contribute to the learning of phoneme boundaries in infancy.