Supporting Early Vocabulary Development: What Sort of Responsiveness Matters?
Abstract
Maternal responsiveness has been positively related with a range of socioemotional and cognitive outcomes including language. A substantial body of research has explored different aspects of verbal responsiveness. However, perhaps because of the many ways in which it can be operationalized, there is currently a lack of consensus around what type of responsiveness is most helpful for later language development. The present study sought to address this problem by considering both the semantic and temporal dimensions of responsiveness on a single cohort while controlling for level of parental education and the overall amount of communication on the part of both the caregiver and the infant. We found that only utterances that were both semantically appropriate and temporally linked to an infant vocalization were related to infant expressive vocabulary at 18 mo.
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Caregivers' immediate responses to infants' communicative behaviors are related to children's vocabulary development.
“Research shows that caregivers' immediate responses to infants' communicative behaviors are related to children's vocabulary development (e.g., Donnellan et al., 2019; McGillion et al., 2013; Olson & Masur, 2015; Wu & Gros‐Louis, 2014).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as McGillion et al., 2013
Previous studies examining the link between caregivers' responses and children's vocabulary outcomes typically focused on caregivers' verbal responses.
“Despite the robust evidence of the facilitative role of nonverbal behaviors, previous studies examining the link between caregivers' responses and children's vocabulary outcomes typically focused on caregivers' verbal responses (e.g., Donnellan et al., 2019; McGillion et al., 2013; Olson & Masur, 2015; Wu & Gros‐Louis, 2014).”
From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as McGillion et al., 2013
Cites
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The relation between pointing and language development: A meta-analysis
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Edmunds, S. R., Kover, S. T., & Stone, W. L. (2019) · Autism Research · doi:10.1002/aur.2100 · Cited by 93 · see citing works
van der Klis, A., Adriaans, F., & Kager, R. (2023) · Infant Behavior and Development · doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101828 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
van der Klis, A., Junge, C., Adriaans, F., & Kager, R. (2025) · Infancy · doi:10.1111/infa.12626 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“…responses directly elicited by infants' vocalisations – or dyadic combinations of infants' vocalisations and caregivers' contingent responses – can significantly predict children's vocabulary skills (Donnellan et al., 2019; Gros‐Louis et al., 2014; Lopez et al., 2020; McGillion et al., 2013).”
Influential
- Authors
- McGillion, M. L., Herbert, J. S., Pine, J. M., Keren-Portnoy, T., Vihman, M. M., & Matthews, D. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Sheffield (GB)
- University of York (GB)
- Venue
- IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development
- Published
- 2013-09
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 240-248
- ISSN
- 1943-0604 (ISSN-L)
- 1943-0612
- OpenAlex
- W1983349220
- Cited by
- 95
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 10 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 4
- FWCI
- 7.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development (publishedVersion)
- Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
- White Rose Research Online (University of Leeds, The University of Sheffield, University of York) (acceptedVersion)
- Research Online (University of Wollongong) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/D005337/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Keywords
- maternal responsiveness, infant language development, expressive vocabulary, temporal synchronization, infant vocalizations, parental education, early childhood
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