Parental language input is one of the best predictors of children's language achievement. Parentese, a near-universal speaking style distinguished by higher pitch, slower tempo, and exaggerated intonation, has been documented in speech directed toward young children in many countries. Previous research shows that the use of parentese and parent-child turn-taking are both associated with advances in children's language learning. We conducted a randomized controlled trial to determine whether a parent coaching intervention delivered when the infants are 6, 10, and 14 mo of age can enhance parental language input and whether this, in turn, changes the trajectory of child language development between 6 and 18 mo of age. Families of typically developing 6-mo-old infants (n = 71) were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. Naturalistic firstperson audio recordings of the infants' home language environment and vocalizations were recorded when the infants were 6, 10, 14, and 18 mo of age. After the 6-, 10-, and 14-mo recordings, intervention, but not control parents attended individual coaching appointments to receive linguistic feedback, listen to language input in their own recordings, and discuss age-appropriate activities that promote language growth. Intervention significantly enhanced parental use of parentese and parent-child turn-taking between 6 and 18 mo. Increases in both variables were significantly correlated with children's language growth during the same period, and children's language outcomes at 18 mo. Using parentese, a socially and linguistically enhanced speaking style, improves children's social language turn-taking and language skills. Research-based interventions targeting social aspects of parent-child interactions can enhance language outcomes. parentese speech | conversational turns | language intervention | parent coaching | social interaction I n the 1960s, anthropologists and linguists documenting speaking patterns across diverse languages noted an unusual speech "register" when adults addressed their young children (1). Originally termed "baby talk," this pattern of speaking had a simpler phonology and grammar, fewer and simpler lexical items, a higher pitch, unusual intonation contours (1), and was observed being used by mothers, fathers, and siblings across many cultures, in both spoken and signed languages (2-4). Later research on infant-directed speech, then termed "motherese" and eventually "parentese" because both genders used it, revealed a unique acoustic signature. Adults speaking parentese used a nearly octave increase in habitual pitch, spoke with exaggerated pitch contours, and used a significantly slower tempo with elongated vowels (5-7).Infants were shown in several studies to prefer parentese when given a choice between parentese and standard adult-directed speech (8-10). Infants' preference for parentese gathered sufficient scientific attention to merit two large studies examining the robustness of the effect across cultures and languages. The first (11), exami...
Previous studies reveal an association between particular features of parental language input and advances in children's language learning. However, it is not known whether parent coaching aimed to enhance specific input components would (a) successfully increase these components in parents' language input and (b) result in concurrent increases in children's language development. The present randomized controlled trial assigned families of typically developing 6‐month‐old infants to Intervention (parent coaching) and Control (no coaching) groups. Families were equivalent on socioeconomic status, infants' gender, and infants' age. Parent coaching took place when infants were 6 and 10 months of age, and included quantitative and qualitative linguistic feedback on the amount of child‐directed speech, back‐and‐forth interactions, and parentese speech style. These variables were derived from each family's first‐person LENA recordings at home. Input variables and infant language were measured at 6, 10, and 14 months. Parent coaching significantly enhanced language input as measured by two social interaction variables: percentage of speech directed to the child and percentage of parentese speech. These two variables were correlated, and were both related to growth in infant babbling between 6 and 14 months. Intervention infants showed greater growth in babbling than Control infants. Furthermore, at 14 months, Intervention infants produced significantly more words than Control infants, as indicated by LENA recordings and parent report via the MacArthur‐Bates Communicative Developmental Inventory. Together, these results indicate that parent coaching can enrich specific aspects of parental language input, and can immediately and positively impact child language outcomes. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/7wqR28gPiwo
Studies show that young children learn new phonemes and words from humans significantly better than from machines. However, it is not clear why learning from video is ineffective or what might be done to improve learning from a screen. The present study, conducted with 9-month-old infants, utilized a manipulation—touch screen video—which allowed infants to control presentations of foreign-language video clips. We tested the hypothesis that infant learning from a screen would be enhanced in the presence of a peer, as opposed to learning alone. Brain measures of phonetic learning and detailed analyses of interaction during learning confirm the hypothesis that social partners enhance learning, even from screens.
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