Hey Baby, What Do You Know?
What means more to children: what is said or how it is said? This was a question explored in research involving 15-month-old and 4-year-old children at San Diego State University. Of interest in this study is whether children place greater weight on words or facial expressions and tone of voice and how these words and emotions affect child behavior.
Children in this study viewed videotaped messages expressing approval or disapproval with regard to an attractive toy that was being revealed from behind a curtain. Sometimes the message was consistent, in that facial expression and tone of voice matched what was being said. Sometimes the message was discrepant, in that the words would be approving and the facial expression and tone of voice would be disapproving, or vice versa.
Two things were measured: the length of time it took for the child to approach the toy and the amount of time the child spent playing with the toy. Of particular interest was the extent to which the words would have a greater effect on children's play behaviors than the facial and vocal expression when the message was discrepant.
The results of this study for the 15-month -old children showed that in general infants seemed to understand what the woman was saying. Infant's behavior is better regulated by how something is said rather than the actual words that are said. The results of the four-year-old study showed that what was said predominated over how it was said in influencing the child's play behavior.
To conclude, in infants, the tones of voice and how words are said are more important than what is said and in four year olds the opposite is true. What is said has more influence than how it is said.
What Can Parents Tell Us?
Parents can offer an extensive amount of information about their child. Parent report together with child performance in a laboratory setting provides a more complete estimate of a child's language. Parents in this study completed the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory (CDI), a vocabulary checklist consisting of 396 items. Upon arrival to the laboratory, parents were also asked to report on their child's knowledge of pictures representing specific words.
The main focus of this research is developing an understanding of what children know at different ages. Language comprehension (what children know but are not yet saying) is an important part of the language development process, and parents may be able to predict their child's performance on vocabulary comprehension measures, helping to tap into this area of development.
Fun Vocabulary Measures for Kids!
We have developed a new Computerized Assessment for testing infants as young as 16 months-of-age. Recently your child may have participated in a study consisting of picture representations of vocabulary words in both a Comprehension Book and on a Touchscreen Monitor.
Why Did We Develop This New Measure?
Very young children are extremely active and curious (as all parents know). Trying to measure the contents of their vocabulary takes time, and we found that previous measures that worked great for older children just didn't capture younger infants' interest.
Preliminary data has shown that the Computerized Assessment provides a more complete picture of young children's language. This measure is able to sustain children's' attention for a longer period of time and children identify more items while going through this task.
Thanks Parents!
We would like to extend a special thanks to all the parents and children who have participated in our studies. Your participation has contributed to valuable research in the field of developmental psychology.
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2002 International Conference on Infant Studies : April 18-21, 2002Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Dr. Friend and Ms. Keplinger recently presented research at the International Conference on Infant Studies held in Toronto, Canada. This research introduced a new Computerized Assessment which is the first instrument to employ a touchscreen to engage infants as young as 16 months of age. This measure yielded more extensive estimates of language comprehension in younger infants. |
Current Grants The San Diego Foundation Blacker-Rose Miah Grant The San Diego Foundation awarded a grant in May 2001 for the development and employment of the new Computerized Assessment. This funding is part of an ongoing research project in the lab assessing language comprehension in 16- and 20-month-old infants. National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health have recently awarded a grant for the development of a new preferential-looking study for infants as young as 12 months of age. We look forward to beginning this new study of language development in the near future! |
