Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T13:17:13.574Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The quality of child-directed speech depends on the speaker's language proficiency

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2019

Erika HOFF Open the ORCID record for Erika HOFF [Opens in a new window] ,
Cynthia CORE  and
Katherine F. SHANKS
Erika HOFF*
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University, USA
Cynthia CORE
Affiliation:
The George Washington University, USA
Katherine F. SHANKS
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University, USA
*
*Corresponding author: Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many children learn language, in part, from the speech of non-native speakers who vary in their language proficiency. To investigate the influence of speaker proficiency on the quality of child-directed speech, 29 mothers who were native English speakers and 31 mothers who were native speakers of Spanish and who reported speaking English to their children on a regular basis were recorded interacting with their two-year-old children in English. Of the non-native speakers, 21 described their English proficiency as ‘good’, and eight described their English proficiency as ‘limited’. ANCOVAs, controlling for differences in maternal education and child language level, revealed significant effects of group on lexical and grammatical properties of child-directed speech that the literature has identified as positive predictors of child language development. These results suggest that the child-directed speech of native speakers and non-native speakers with good proficiency provide a richer database for language acquisition than the child-directed speech of speakers with limited proficiency.

Keywords

child-directed speechnon-native inputimmigrant familiesbilingual development
Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 47 , Special Issue 1: The Influence of Input Quality and Communicative Interaction on Language Development Part 1 , January 2020 , pp. 132 - 145
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Beals, D. (1997). Sources of support for learning words in conversation: evidence from mealtimes. Journal of Child Language, 24, 673–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bergelson, E., Casillas, M., Soderstrom, M., Seidl, A., Warlaumont, A. S., & Amatuni, A. (2019). What do North American babies hear? A large-scale cross-corpus analysis. Developmental Science, 22(1), e12724. doi.org/10.1111/desc.12724CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bialystok, E. (2009). Bilingualism: the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 3–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brownell, R. (2000). Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test. Novato, CA: Academic Therapy Publications.Google Scholar
Brownell, R. (2001). Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test: Spanish-Bilingual Edition. Novato, CA: Academic Therapy Publications.Google Scholar
Buac, M., Gross, M., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2014). The role of primary caregiver vocabulary knowledge in the development of bilingual children's vocabulary skills. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57, 1804–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chondrogianni, V., & Marinis, T. (2011). Differential effects of internal and external factors on the development of vocabulary, tense morphology and morpho-syntax in successive bilingual children. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1, 318–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crosnoe, R., Ansari, A., Purtell, K. M., & Wu, N. (2016). Latin American immigration, maternal education, and approaches to managing children's schooling in the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78, 60–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cross, T. G. (1977). Mothers’ speech adjustments: the contribution of selected child listener variables. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (Eds.), Talking to children: language input and acquisition (pp. 151–88). Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dale, E., & Chall, J. S. (1948). A formula for predicting readability: instructions. Educational Research Bulletin, 27, 37–54.Google Scholar
Fish, M. S., García-Sierra, A., Ramírez-Esparza, N., & Kuhl, P. K. (2017). Infant-directed speech in English and Spanish: assessments of monolingual and bilingual caregiver VOT. Journal of Phonetics, 63, 19–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hadley, P. A., Rispoli, M., & Holt, J. K. (2017). Input subject diversity accelerates the growth of tense and agreement: indirect benefits from a parent-implemented intervention. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 60, 2619–35.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hammer, C. S., Komaroff, E., Rodriguez, B. L., Lopez, L. M., Scarpino, S. E., & Goldstein, B. (2012). Predicting Spanish–English bilingual children's language abilities. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 55, 1251–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Adamson, L. B., Bakeman, R., Owen, M. T., Golinkoff, R. M., Pace, A., … & Suma, K. (2015). The contribution of early communication quality to low-income children's language success. Psychological Science, 26, 1071–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E. (2003). The specificity of environmental influence: socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development, 74, 1368–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E. (2006). How social contexts support and shape language development. Developmental Review, 26, 55–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoff, E. (2013). Interpreting the early language trajectories of children from low-SES and language minority homes: implications for closing achievement gaps. Developmental Psychology, 49, 4–14.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E., Burridge, A., Ribot, K., & Giguere, D. (2018). Language specificity in the relation of maternal education to bilingual children's vocabulary growth. Developmental Psychology, 54, 1011–19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E., Giguere, D., Quinn, J., & Lauro, J. (2018). The development of English and Spanish among children in immigrant families in the United States. Pensamiento Educativo: Revista de Investigatión Educacional Latinoamericana, 55(2), 1–17.Google ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E., & Naigles, L. (2002). How children use input to acquire a lexicon. Child Development, 73, 418–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff, E., Rumiche, R., Burridge, A., Ribot, K. M., & Welsh, S. N. (2014). Expressive vocabulary development in children from bilingual and monolingual homes: a longitudinal study from two to four years. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29, 433–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1991). Mother–child conversation in different social classes and communicative settings. Child Development, 62, 782–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Housen, A., Kuiken, F., & Vedder, I. (Eds.) (2012). Dimensions of L2 performance and proficiency: complexity, accuracy and fluency in SLA (Vol. 32). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsu, N., Hadley, P. A., & Rispoli, M. (2017). Diversity matters: parent input predicts toddler verb production. Journal of Child Language, 44, 63–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huttenlocher, J., Vasilyeva, M., Cymerman, E., & Levine, S. (2002). Language input and child syntax. Cognitive Psychology, 45, 337–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huttenlocher, J., Waterfall, H., Vasilyeva, M., Vevea, J., & Hedges, L. V. (2010). Sources of variability in children's language growth. Cognitive Psychology, 61, 343–65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jia, G., Aaronson, D., & Wu, Y. (2002). Long-term language attainment of bilingual immigrants: predictive variables and language group differences. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 599–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: tools for analyzing talk (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Retrieved from <https://talkbank.org/manuals/CLAN.pdf>.Google Scholar
Paradis, J. (2011). Individual differences in child English second language acquisition: comparing child-internal and child-external factors. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 1, 213–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Place, S., & Hoff, E. (2011). Properties of dual language exposure that influence 2-year-olds’ bilingual proficiency. Child Development, 82, 1834–849.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Place, S., & Hoff, E. (2016). Effects and noneffects of input in bilingual environments on dual language skills in 2½-year-olds. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19, 1023–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plante, E., Ogilvie, T., Vance, R., Aguilar, J. M., Dailey, N. S., Meyers, C., Lieser, A. M., & Burton, R. (2014). Variability in the language input to children enhances learning in a treatment context. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 23, 530–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Restrepo, M. A. (1998). Identifiers of predominantly Spanish-speaking children with language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 41, 1398–411.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rowe, M. L. (2008). Child-directed speech: relation to socioeconomic status, knowledge of child development and child vocabulary skill. Journal of Child Language, 35, 185–205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rowe, M. L. (2012). A longitudinal investigation of the role of quantity and quality of child-directed speech in vocabulary development. Child Development, 83, 1762–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smithson, L., Paradis, J., & Nicoladis, E. (2014). Bilingualism and receptive vocabulary achievement: Could sociocultural context make a difference? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 17, 810–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoehr, A., Benders, T., van Hell, J. G., & Fikkert, P. (2019). Bilingual preschoolers’ speech is associated with non-native maternal language input. Language Learning and Development, 15, 75–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Kuchirko, Y., & Song, L. (2014). Why is infant language learning facilitated by parental responsiveness? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 23, 121–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weizman, Z. O., & Snow, C. E. (2001). Lexical input as related to children's vocabulary acquisition: effects of sophisticated exposure and support for meaning. Developmental Psychology, 37, 265–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zimmerman, F. J., Gilkerson, J., Richards, J. A., Christakis, D. A., Xu, D., Gray, S., & Yapanel, U. (2009). Teaching by listening: the importance of adult–child conversations to language development. Pediatrics, 124, 342–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed