Infant-directed speech (IDS) is a specific register that adults use to address infants, and it is characterised by prosodic exaggeration and lexical and syntactic simplification. Several authors have underlined that this simplified speech becomes more complex according to the infant's age. However, there is a lack of studies on lexical and syntactic modifications in Italian IDS during the first year of an infant's life. In the present study, 80 mother–infant dyads were longitudinally observed at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months during free-play interactions. Maternal vocal productions were subsequently coded. The results show an overall low lexical variability and syntactic complexity that identify speech to infants as a simplified register; however, the high occurrence of complex items and well-structured utterances suggests that IDS is not simple speech. Moreover, maternal IDS becomes more complex over time, but not linearly, with a maximum simplification in the second half of the first year.
Temperament is an individual aspect that strictly affects infants and children engagement with the environment and it is supposed to play a role in the acquiring of new competences. Several studies focused on the possible influence of temperament in the process of language acquisition in early childhood reporting not consistent findings. Since maternal input is a variable that has been widely associated with infant language development this longitudinal study aimed to explore the role of the quality of maternal input in the temperament-language association. We hypothesized that the longitudinal association between early infant temperament and language production is moderated by the quality of maternal input during the first year of life. Infant temperament at 3 months and maternal linguistic input (lexical diversity and syntactic complexity) during spontaneous mother–infant interactions at 6, 9, and 12 months were assessed. Language competences were evaluated at the end of the second year: language production at 18 months with the CDI and child syntactic complexity at 24 months during spontaneous speech. Results showed significant moderating effects of syntactic complexity and lexical variability of maternal input at 6 and 9 months on the association of duration of orienting abilities and later language production. Infants with greater attentional abilities and with mothers who spoke to them with a more complex and variable input showed the better language outcomes. The association between infant distress to limitations and child language was not moderated by maternal input. No effects were found when considering the temperamental scale smile and laugher. Attentional control temperamental characteristics could help the infant to be more focus on maternal input throughout the first year of life and could consequently facilitate language development. Our findings underlined the necessity to explore infant development considering the interaction between individual and contextual factors.
When adults speak or sing with infants, they sound differently than in adult communication. Infant‐directed (ID) communication helps caregivers to regulate infants' emotions and helps infants to process speech information, at least from ID‐speech. However, it is largely unclear whether infants might also process speech information presented in ID‐singing. Therefore, we examined whether infants discriminate vowels in ID‐singing, as well as potential differences with ID‐speech. Using an alternating trial preference procedure, infants aged 4–6 and 8–10 months were tested on their discrimination of an unfamiliar non‐native vowel contrast presented in ID‐like speech and singing. Relying on models of early speech sound perception, we expected that infants in their first half year of life would discriminate the vowels, in contrast to older infants whose non‐native sound perception should deteriorate, at least in ID‐like speech. Our results showed that infants of both age groups were able to discriminate the vowels in ID‐like singing, while only the younger group discriminated the vowels in ID‐like speech. These results show that infants process speech sound information in song from early on. They also hint at diverging perceptual or attentional mechanisms guiding infants' sound processing in ID‐speech versus ID‐singing toward the end of the first year of life.
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