Features of Child Directed Speech Flashcards
How do caregivers influence children’s language development?
through child directed speech
(also known as ‘here and now’ language)
What does CDS sound like?
slower tempo, higher pitch, exaggerated notation, repetitions
What are the 4 features of CDS?
contingent talk
expanding and recasting
diversity and complexity
joint book reading
What is contingent talk?
tendency to tune into and talk about whatever is the child’s current focus of attention
Tomasello and Farrar: contingent talk
found mothers who talked about objects that were focus of Childs’ attention had children with larger vocabularies
What is expanding and recasting?
early speech is described as telegraphic
developing children’s language skills
Cleave et al: expanding and recasting
meta analysis of 14 studies of recasting interventions in children with language impairments
interventions report large positive effects on grammatical development
What is diversity and Complexity?
a normal conversation uses a small no.of words
other words are less common so child has less opportunity to learn them
use diverse sentences to children
Huttenlocher et al: diversity and complexity
found significant relation between mothers and teachers’ use of complex sentences and 4 year olds’ use and comprehension of complex sentences
What is joint book reading?
involving child when reading together
encourages contingent talk and dialogic interaction (one to one)
increases lexical and syntactic diversity
McGillion et al: contingent talk study
socially diverse group of 142 caregivers and their infants
contingent talk intervention or dental health intervention (control)
caregivers shown 10min video describing contingent talk and asked to practice it
McGillion et al Findings
significant effect of intervention on amount and contingency of caregiver talk
small relation between social economic status and contingent talk
But effects if intervention faded over time (24months)
