When do caregivers talk? The influences of activity and time of day on caregiver speech and child vocalizations in two childcare environments

Melanie Soderstrom; Kelsey Wittebolle

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0080646

When do caregivers talk? The influences of activity and time of day on caregiver speech and child vocalizations in two childcare environments

PLoS One. 2013 Nov 18;8(11):e80646. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080646. eCollection 2013.

Authors

Melanie Soderstrom¹, Kelsey Wittebolle

Affiliation

¹ Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Abstract

The importance of the language environment in influencing language outcomes is well known, but few studies have addressed the contextual factors that influence the amount of speech heard and vocalizations produced by a young child under naturalistic conditions. We analyze effects of type of activity engaged in by the child and time of day on quantitative measures of the language environment. We found effects of both activity and time of day. Structured activities generated the highest levels of adult language, but not necessarily the most child vocalizations. Home and daycare environments looked overall very similar on these measures, however there were important differences across the two environments with respect to the specific effects of activity and time of day.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Caregivers*
Child Day Care Centers
Child Language*
Child, Preschool
Environment*
Female
Humans
Infant
Male
Speech*

Grants and funding

This research was funded by internal funding from the University of Manitoba, and from a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Development grant to the first author, project #37679. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.