Naturalistic social communication and speech development in monolingual and bilingual infants.

Abstract

This investigation explores how everyday social communication between parents and infants relates to speech development. This goal is accomplished by using the digital recorder LENA that monolingual (N=11) and Spanish‐English bilingual (N=10) 14‐month‐old infants wore for 4 days. Infants’ sample files (i.e., 160, 30‐s intervals per infant) were coded according to the social communication coding inventory, which includes categories such as “babbling” (e.g., canonical versus variegated babbling), “social interactions” (e.g., baby was with one other person or with a group of people), “how adults are talking” (e.g., “motherese” versus adult talk), and “activities” (e.g., adult is reading and/or teaching). The results showed that babbling relates to relevant social communication categories in both groups. For example, the percentage of time “motherese” is used relates positively to babbling, but adult directed speech relates negatively to babbling. Interestingly, the amount of time monolingual parents spend teaching and reading to their infants relates positively to variegated babbling, but the amount of time bilingual parents have the TV on relates negatively to variegated babbling. These findings shed some light about how natural everyday social communication influences speech development in monolingual and bilingual infants. [Work supported by an NSF grant to the UW LIFE Center.]