Effects of hearing loss and amplification device on infants’ perception of infant-directed speech

Abstract

Caregivers typically speak to their infants in a speech register known as motherese or infant-directed speech (IDS; Fernald and Simon, 1984; Snow, 1977). Infants also prefer to listen to IDS over adult-directed speech (ADS) (Cooper and Aslin, 1990; Fernald, 1985; Singh et al.). Moreover, mothers adjust their IDS to factors such as infant age (e.g., Kitamura and Burnham, 2003; Newman and Hussain, 2006). Another factor that could potentially affect mother-infant interactions is infant hearing loss. Studies have shown that mothers adjust their speech based on infants’ hearing experience (e.g., Bergeson et al., 2006; Kondaurova and Bergeson, 2011; Wieland et al., 2015). Do infants with hearing loss pay attention to IDS? Two recent studies suggest that infants who use hearing aids or cochlear implants demonstrate increased attention to IDS over both ADS and silent trials (Wanget al., 2017; 2018). One feature that might regulate infant attention, namely target word repetition, is correlated with vocabulary skills in later childhood (Wang et al., in preparation). In this talk, we will address infants’ attention to speech and the role IDS serves in both cognitive-social and linguistic development for typically hearing infants and those with hearing loss.