Suarez-Rivera, C;
Pinheiro-Mehta, N;
Tamis-LeMonda, CS;
(2023)
Within arms reach: Physical proximity shapes mother-infant language exchanges in real-time.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
, 64
, Article 101298. 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101298.
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Abstract
During everyday interactions, mothers and infants achieve behavioral synchrony at multiple levels. The ebb-and-flow of mother-infant physical proximity may be a central type of synchrony that establishes a common ground for infant-mother interaction. However, the role of proximity in language exchanges is relatively unstudied, perhaps because structured tasks—the common setup for observing infant-caregiver interactions—establish proximity by design. We videorecorded 100 mothers (U.S. Hispanic N = 50, U.S. Non-Hispanic N = 50) and their 13- to 23-month-old infants during natural activity at home (1-to-2 h per dyad), transcribed mother and infant speech, and coded proximity continuously (i.e., infants and mother within arms reach). In both samples, dyads entered proximity in a bursty temporal pattern, with bouts of proximity interspersed with bouts of physical distance. As hypothesized, Non-Hispanic and Hispanic mothers produced more words and a greater variety of words when within arms reach than out of arms reach. Similarly, infants produced more utterances that contained words when close to mother than when not. However, infants babbled equally often regardless of proximity, generating abundant opportunities to play with sounds. Physical proximity expands opportunities for language exchanges and infants’ communicative word use, although babies accumulate massive practice babbling even when caregivers are not proximal.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Within arms reach: Physical proximity shapes mother-infant language exchanges in real-time |
| Location: | Netherlands |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101298 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101298 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. under a Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Burstiness, Infant vocalizations, Infant-caregiver interactions, Language input, Proximity, Synchrony, Temporal structure |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Population, Policy and Practice Dept |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10179404 |
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