ERIC Number: EJ1151506
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Sep
Pages: 29
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0305-0009
EISSN: N/A
Multimodal Infant-Directed Communication: How Caregivers Combine Tactile and Linguistic Cues
Abu-Zhaya, Rana; Seidl, Amanda; Cristia, Alejandrina
Journal of Child Language, v44 n5 p1088-1116 Sep 2017
Both touch and speech independently have been shown to play an important role in infant development. However, little is known about how they may be combined in the input to the child. We examined the use of touch and speech together by having mothers read their 5-month-olds books about body parts and animals. Results suggest that speech+touch multimodal events are characterized by more exaggerated touch and speech cues. Further, our results suggest that maternal touches are aligned with speech and that mothers tend to touch their infants in locations that are congruent with names of body parts. Thus, our results suggest that tactile cues could potentially aid both infant word segmentation and word learning.
Descriptors: Infants, Child Development, Tactual Perception, Reading Aloud to Others, Speech Communication, Cues, Mothers, Human Body, Vocabulary Development, Interpersonal Communication
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A