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Adult responses to infant prelinguistic vocalizations are associated with infant vocabulary: A home observation study

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Lopez, Lukas D., Walle, Eric A., Pretzer, Gina M., Warlaumont, Anne S.·2020·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0242232PMC PMC7688127
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Abstract

This study used LENA recording devices to capture infants’ home language environments and examine how qualitative differences in adult responding to infant vocalizations related to infant vocabulary. Infant-directed speech and infant vocalizations were coded in samples taken from daylong home audio recordings of 13-month-old infants. Infant speech-related vocalizations were identified and coded as either canonical or non-canonical. Infant-directed adult speech was identified and classified into different pragmatic types. Multiple regressions examined the relation between adult responsiveness, imitating, recasting, and expanding and infant canonical and non-canonical vocalizations with caregiver-reported infant receptive and productive vocabulary. An interaction between adult like-sound responding (i.e., the total number of imitations, recasts, and expansions) and infant canonical vocalizations indicated that infants who produced more canonical vocalizations and received more adult like-sound responses had higher productive vocabularies. When sequences were analyzed, infant canonical vocalizations that preceded and followed adult recasts and expansions were positively associated with infant productive vocabulary. These findings provide insights into how infant-adult vocal exchanges are related to early vocabulary development.

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  • Studies do not typically find an effect of infants' vocalisations on children's vocabularies by themselves.

    “Likewise, studies do not typically find an effect of infants' vocalisations on children's vocabularies by themselves, while adults' semantically contingent 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., 2”

    From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Lopez et al., 2020

    The Results (Receptive vocabulary and Productive vocabulary; page unavailable) generally found no significant association between infant vocalizations alone and vocabulary. But the Productive vocabulary analysis found a significant main effect of infant canonical vocalizations in the imitation model (p = .01). This single study therefore supports the claim's general pattern only with that exception; it does not establish what studies typically find. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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  • Adults' semantically contingent responses directly elicited by infants' vocalisations - or dyadic combinations of infants' vocalisations and caregivers' contingent responses - can significantly predict children's vocabulary skills.

    “Likewise, studies do not typically find an effect of infants' vocalisations on children's vocabularies by themselves, while adults' semantically contingent 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., 2”

    From The role of dyadic combinations of infants' behaviors and caregivers' verbal and multimodal responses in predicting vocabulary outcomes (2025) · cites this paper as Lopez et al., 2020

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Cited by

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Authors
Lopez, L. D., Walle, E. A., Pretzer, G. M., & Warlaumont, A. S.
Affiliations
  • University of California, Merced (US)
  • University of California, Los Angeles (US)
Corresponding author
Lopez, Lukas D.
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2020-11-25
Volume
15
Issue
11
Pages
e0242232
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0242232
PMC
PMC7688127
OpenAlex
W3110227809
Cited by
58
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 2
FWCI
12.46
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (1539129, 1529127)
  • James S. McDonnell Foundation (BCS-1529127)
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 › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Phonetics and Phonology Research
Keywords
infant-directed speech, recasts, receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, home language environment, Lena
MeSH terms
Adult, Communication, Female, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Male, Speech, Verbal Behavior, Video Recording, Vocabulary, Caregivers

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