The Multisensory Nature of Verbal Discourse in Parent–Toddler Interactions

Suanda, Sumarga H.; Smith, Linda B.; Yu, Chen

doi:10.1080/87565641.2016.1256403

Cited by 76 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…Second, two of the key findings (visual referential clarity during naming and the effect of manual actions on object views) are not one-off results. That is, although the context in which these two findings were observed may be new, there is a sizeable body of evidence demonstrating these phenomena (with some employing sample sizes as large as 100 toddlers, see Suanda et al, 2016; see also Pereira et al, 2014;Yu & Smith, 2012;Yu et al, 2009). Finally, there is precedent for similar small sample research on toddlers' sensorimotor experiences to be reliable and generalizable.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Signal in the Noise: The Visual Ecology of Parents' Object Naming

Suanda

Barnhart

Smith

et al. 2018

Infancy

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The uncertainty of reference has long been considered a key challenge for young word learners. Recent studies of head camera wearing toddlers and their parents during object play have revealed that from toddlers' views, the referents of parents' object naming are often visually quite clear. Although these studies have promising theoretical implications, they were all conducted in stripped‐down laboratory contexts. The current study examines the visual referential clarity of parents' object naming during play in the home. Results revealed patterns of visual referential clarity that resembled previous laboratory studies. Furthermore, context analyses show that such clarity is largely a product of manual activity rather than the object naming context. Implications for the mechanisms of early word learning are discussed.

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Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Signal in the Noise: The Visual Ecology of Parents' Object Naming

Suanda

Barnhart

Smith

et al. 2018

Infancy

Self Cite

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“…However, type and tokens are not the only relevant factors in the input. The quantity of other aspects of children's language learning environments also matters, including frequency of specific syntactic frames (Cameron-Faulkner, Lieven, & Tomasello, 2003;Huttenlocher et al, 2002;Huang, Leech, & Rowe, 2017;Naigles & Hoff-Ginsberg, 1998;Rowe, Leech, & Cabrera, 2017) as well social behavioral factors including turn-taking, coordinated attention to the topic of speech, and parental responsivity (Bakeman & Adamson, 1984;Hirsh-Pasek et al, 2015;Hoff, 2006;Landry, Smith, Swank, Assel, & Vellet, 2001;Ninio & Bruner, 1978;Suanda, Smith, & Yu, 2016;Tamis-LeMonda, Bornstein, & Baumwell, 2001;Tamis-LeMonda, Kuchirko, & Song, 2014;Tomasello, 1988). Caregiver child joint attention and the timing of the naming event with respect to the child's focus of attention on the labeled referent are all relevant to real-time learning (Cartmill et al, 2013;Dunham, Dunham, & Curwin, 1993;Yu & Smith, 2012).…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantity and Diversity: Simulating Early Word Learning Environments

2018

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The words in children's language learning environments are strongly predictive of cognitive development and school achievement. But how do we measure language environments and do so at the scale of the many words that children hear day in, day out? The quantity and quality of words in a child's input are typically measured in terms of total amount of talk and the lexical diversity in that talk. There are disagreements in the literature whether amount or diversity is the more critical measure of the input. Here we analyze the properties of a large corpus (6.5 million words) of speech to children and simulate learning environments that differ in amount of talk per unit time, lexical diversity, and the contexts of talk. The central conclusion is that what researchers need to theoretically understand, measure, and change is not the total amount of words, or the diversity of words, but the function that relates total words to the diversity of words, and how that function changes across different contexts of talk.

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“…Distinct functions can be at least partially discriminated using low‐level acoustic features (Fernald, ) and by linguistically naive observers (Bryant & Barrett, ). Yet, most research has focused on how infants’ environment supports learning object words (e.g., Pruden, Hirsh‐Pasek, Golinkoff, & Hennon, ; Suanda, Smith, & Yu, ; Trueswell, Lin, Armstrong, Cartmill, Goldin‐Meadow, & Gleitman, ). The diversity of utterance types in natural discourse, however, exacerbates the inherent difficulty of mapping words to meanings: for example, there are frequent opportunities for spurious associations not only between words and objects, but between words or phrases and varied social purposes ranging from action‐imperatives such as “don't touch that!” to non‐referential utterances such as “Hi, baby!”…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maternal discourse continuity and infants’ actions organize 12‐month‐olds’ language exposure during object play

Chang

Deák

2018

Developmental Science

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Infant language learning depends on the distribution of co‐occurrences within language–between words and other words–and between language content and events in the world. Yet infant‐directed speech is not limited to words that refer to perceivable objects and actions. Rather, caregivers’ utterances contain a range of syntactic forms and expressions with diverse attentional, regulatory, social, and referential functions. We conducted a distributional analysis of linguistic content types at the utterance level, and demonstrated that a wide range of content types in maternal speech can be distinguished by their distribution in sequences of utterances and by their patterns of co‐occurrence with infants’ actions. We observed free‐play sessions of 38 12‐month‐old infants and their mothers, annotated maternal utterances for 10 content types, and coded infants’ gaze target and object handling. Results show that all content types tended to repeat in consecutive utterances, whereas preferred transitions between different content types reflected sequences from attention‐capturing to directing and then descriptive utterances. Specific content types were associated with infants’ engagement with objects (declaratives, descriptions, object names), with disengagement from objects (talk about attention, infant's name), and with infants’ gaze at the mother (affirmations). We discuss how structured discourse might facilitate language acquisition by making speech input more predictable and/or by providing clues about high‐level form‐function mappings.

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The Multisensory Nature of Verbal Discourse in Parent–Toddler Interactions

Cited by 76 publications

References 79 publications

The Signal in the Noise: The Visual Ecology of Parents' Object Naming

The Signal in the Noise: The Visual Ecology of Parents' Object Naming

Quantity and Diversity: Simulating Early Word Learning Environments

Maternal discourse continuity and infants’ actions organize 12‐month‐olds’ language exposure during object play

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