Infant Placement and Language Exposure in Daily Life

Abstract

Despite widespread use, we know little about how seating devices (e.g., car seats, jumpers) may shape infants’ experiences. The present study examined seating device use and language exposure in two samples of 4- to 6-month-old infants (primarily White, higher SES) with video analysis (Study 1; N=29; 13 girls), repeated surveys, and continuous audio recording (Study 2; N=60; 37 girls). Device use was associated with lower levels of concurrent language exposure compared to other locations (incidence rate ratio=0.59; 0.55, respectively). Further, infants who were more often in seating devices tended to experience fewer daily adult words (R2=.11) and less consistent adult speech (R2=.18). These findings indicate that seating device use has both within- and between-person associations with infants’ exposure to language.