Prespeech Vocalizations and the Emergence of Speech: A Study of 1005 Spanish Children

Abstract

This study investigates 12 prespeech vocal behaviors which are taken to reflect children's phonological, communicative and early symbolic development. It explores their development (onset, duration and extinction) and their relation to early lexical development. A structured parental questionnaire on prespeech vocalizations was developed, validated and used for the evaluation of 1005 Spanish children's early vocal development (8-30 months). In parallel, the same children's productive vocabulary was assessed using the vocabulary section of the European-Spanish MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories. Results highlight a global inverted U-shaped developmental pattern which emerges from the asynchronous development of the vocal behaviors examined, relating both their emergence and extinction to advances in linguistic development. Moreover, the protracted coexistence of prespeech vocalizations with early speech and their significant correlations with vocabulary size reveal a gradual transition into language. Overall results reinforce and extend previous findings on the development of prespeech vocalizations and establish their relevance as early indexes of linguistic development. Finally, positive evidence on the use of an assisted parental report method for reliably evaluating these developments is provided. Results are discussed within theoretical frameworks that conceive language as the emergent product of complex developmental processes.

Vocal matching in interactions between mothers and their normal-hearing and hearing-impaired twins

“…Our results are consistent with previous findings suggesting that spontaneous vocal imitation is an important characteristic of contingent behavior in mother-infant dyads with NH infants (Hallgen, 2012;Karousou & López-Ornat, 2013;Masur & Olson, 2008;Pelaez et al, 2011). Yet, our study goes beyond the replication of results of previous research by showing that vocal matching is a part of mother-infant natural interactions with HI infants who have been using a CI or HAs for one year.…”

“…Only adjacent utterances were analyzed because there were too few matches when the model was the second utterance away from the match. Given evidence that NH child imitative abilities change over time (Cicchetti, 1994;Karousou & López-Ornat, 2013;Masur, 1993;Sokolov, 1992), we examined MI and IM vocal matches at each of the three testing sessions, rather than collapsing them together. Additional detailed data on the proportion of "exact" and "partial" matches in adjacent and non-adjacent utterances over the three testing sessions is provided in Table 4 (a) and (b) correspondingly.…”

Volubility of the human infant: Effects of parental interaction (or lack of it)

“…Karousou and López-Ornat (2013) observed that infants continued to vocalise when alone and with toys up to 30 months of age when their study ended. This study used parent report and simply recorded the presence or absence of behaviours.…”

Tεστ Eπικοινωνιακής Aνάπτυξης (ΤΕΑ) - Κλίμακες Για Την Πρώιμη Εκτίμηση Της Επικοινωνιακής Και Γλωσσικής Ανάπτυξης Παιδιών Ηλικίας 8-30 Μηνών: Πιλοτικά Δεδομένα Και Βασικές Ψυχομετρικές Ιδιότητες

“…Αξίζει να σηµειωθεί ̟ως στην εκδοχή των ιδίων ερωτηµατολογίων ̟ου ανα̟τύχθηκε στην Ισ̟ανία (López Ornat et al, 2005) έχει ̟ροστεθεί µία νέα υ̟οκλίµακα, η ο̟οία στοχεύει στην αξιολόγηση της ε̟ικοινωνίας µέσω ̟ρολεκτικών φωνο̟οιήσεων (βλ. Karousou & López Ornat, 2013). Τέλος, τα τελευταία χρόνια έχουν γίνει ̟ροσ̟άθειες για τη στάθµιση συνο̟τικών (µονοσέλιδων) εκδοχών των εν λόγω ερωτηµατολογίων (CDI Shortforms) σε αρκετές γλώσσες, στις ο̟οίες η αξιολόγηση βασίζεται α̟οκλειστικά στο εκφραστικό λεξιλόγιο των ̟αιδιών (βλ.…”