Lam-Cassettari, C. 1, 2 & Noble, P. 1, 2
1 MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour & Develompent
2 Western Sydney University
It is hypothesized that the quality of infant-directed speech (IDS) plays a pivotal role in shaping language learning in the first years of life. This study explores the relationship between the quality of mothers and fathers IDS, and number of child vocalisations in a group of pre-linguistic Australian infants. A ratings study was conducted to examine whether the quality of affective expression differs in mothers and fathers IDS to their 6-month and 11-month old infants in eight monolingual Australian families. Twenty-nine adults rated the level of vocal affect (emotion, comforting, approving, directive) in low-pass filtered speech samples. Infant vocalisations were quantified using the LENA (Language Environment Analysis System). Analysis of Variance indicated that mothers were more positive, comforting and approving than fathers with 6 and 11-month old infant?s (all p?s < .0.05). There was no difference on the directive subscale. The number of vocalisations was not correlated with the quality of affective intent in IDS. As expected, mothers were rated higher in IDS emotions than fathers at both ages, with the exception to the directive affect scale. Additional data is currently being collected as part of a longitudinal study.