The Natural Language Environment of 9-Month-Old Infants in Sweden and Concurrent Association With Early Language Development

Abstract

The language environment is important for the development of early communication and language. In the current study, we describe the natural home language environment of 9-month-old infants in Sweden and its concurrent association with language development. Eighty-eight families took part in the study. The home language environment was measured using the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) system, and language development was assessed using Swedish Early Communicative Development Inventory (SECDI), a parent questionnaire. LENA measures showed dramatic variation between individuals but were comparable to and showed overlapping variance with previous studies conducted in English-speaking households. Nonetheless, there were significantly more infant vocalizations and conversational turns in the present study than in one previous study. Adult word count correlated significantly and positively with infants' Use of gestures and the subscale of that section Communicative gestures. These together with another four non-significant associations formed a consistent overall pattern that suggested a link between infants' language environment and language development. Although the direction of causality cannot be determined from the current data, future studies should examine children longitudinally to assess the directionality or the bidirectionality of the reported associations between infant's language environment and language development.

Vocal Turn-Taking in Families With Children With and Without Hearing Loss

“…It is possible that a number of methodological differences underlie the discrepancies in the CTC between LENA and humans as the CTC is affected by the proportional biases with LENA CTC being higher than manual counts for samples with fewer turns but being lower than manual counts for samples with many turns (Busch et al 2018). Future research with human annotators is needed to confirm the current results that may be an important clinical factor for parents (and clinicians) to consider if they want to use LENA system in family (Moeller et al 2013; Nyberg et al 2020) or peer (Antia et al 2003) early intervention practices.…”

No evidence of an association between parental mind-mindedness at 9 months and language development at either 9 or 25 months in Swedish infants

“…The maximum score for Use of Gestures was 73 and was calculated by adding the 51 items that had a binary response (yes–no, scored as 1–0) and the 11 items that had a three-point rating scale (not yet–sometimes–often, scored as 0–1–2). Word Comprehension and Word Production were scored in line with the Swedish scoring manual (Eriksson & Berglund, 2002) and the section Use of Gestures was scored in line with previous work (see Nyberg et al, 2020). SECDI T1 descriptive statistics and correlations with SECDI scores based on a largely overlapping sample are reported in Nyberg et al (2020).…”

“…Word Comprehension and Word Production were scored in line with the Swedish scoring manual (Eriksson & Berglund, 2002) and the section Use of Gestures was scored in line with previous work (see Nyberg et al, 2020). SECDI T1 descriptive statistics and correlations with SECDI scores based on a largely overlapping sample are reported in Nyberg et al (2020).…”

Análise microanalítica do paradigma experimental face-to-face still-face (FFSF) de díades mãe-bebê aos 3 meses de vida, por meio do infant regulatory scoring system (IRSS)

“…Nyberg et al (2020) apresentaram que a vocalização infantil começa a se aproximar dos contornos das sílabas por volta do terceiro ao quarto mês, e se torna mais frequente entre os sexto e novo mês, à medida que o balbucio aumenta.Informaram que a exposição à fala do adulto é uma parte importante do ambiente de linguagem do bebê e varia consideravelmente, de acordo com inúmeros fatores, dentre eles o nível sócio econômico (NSE), e a oferta de estímulos, por exemplo.Enfatizaram a importância de pesquisas futuras levando em consideração o NSE e o background cultural, uma vez que estudos mostraram que quanto mais palavras as crianças ouvem, mais rápida será a aquisição de seu vocabulário. Entretanto, não é somente a quantidade de estímulos que é importante, mas também a qualidade, ou seja, a relação entre a estimulação dos pais e os resultados da linguagem da criança depende mais da qualidade das interações e estímulos dados por eles do que da quantidade dos estímulos.…”

“…informaram que as meninas apresentaram um efeito mais positivo que os meninos no episódio inicial do FFSF, mas não no episódio de reunião, como visto pela correlação negativa significativa entre sexo do bebê e afeto positivo no episódio de linha de base, mas nenhuma correlação significativa no episódio de reunião, entretanto, não foi encontrada diferença entre os sexos. Mesmo com estas considerações, este estudo não teve objetivo de verificar se houve diferenças entre os sexos dos bebês participantes, mas verificar os padrões de autorregulação nas relações que estabeleceram com suas mães, verificadas durante o procedimento experimental Still-Face Face-to-face Nyberg et al (2020). relataram que há um forte elo entre o ambiente de linguagem dos bebês e desenvolvimento a linguagem propriamente dito.…”