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From ‘ah’ to ‘bah’: social feedback loops for speech sounds at key points of developmental transition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2017

Julie GROS-LOUIS  and
Jennifer L. MILLER
Julie GROS-LOUIS*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, USA
Jennifer L. MILLER
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Julie Gros-Louis, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, 11 Seashore Hall E, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USA. e-mail: julie-gros-louis@uiowa.edu
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Abstract

Social feedback is a driving force for speech development. A recent study provided a key finding to explain how contingent responses influence developmental change: infant speech-related vocalizations are contingent on responses to prior speech-related vocalizations (Warlaumont et al., 2014). However, the study did not distinguish between different speech-related vocalizations, vowel-like (V) and consonant–vowel (CV) vocalizations, which is important because CV vocalizations are a precursor to words. The present study explored parents’ responses to infants’ vocalizations and infants’ subsequent vocal production at a point when vocalizations become more like adult speech. The relative proportion of CVs following contingent responses to CV did not differ between 10- and 12-months-olds; however, there was only a significant contingent relationship between responses to CV and subsequent CV production in 12-month-olds. Results suggest a developmental transition and a social feedback loop for the production of more developmentally advanced sounds when infants are learning their first words.

Type
Brief Research Reports
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 807 - 825
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

A warm thank you to the children and families who participated. Thanks to Johanna Burdinie for project management. We also extend special thanks to members of the Infant Communicative Development Lab for their help with participant recruitment, testing, and/or data coding.

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