Speaker
Description
Language acquisition relies on successful coordination of infant attention and parent speech. While infants’ exploration frequently guides both partners’ focus of attention during free play, parent speech has been shown to extend infants’ attention towards already fixated objects. So far, little is known about the role of qualitative characteristics of parent speech in coordinating such interactions and scaffolding infant attention. Here, we analysed caregivers' speech to their 18-month-old infants (N = 31) during free play with novel and familiar toys. We investigated whether parent speech content and communicative intent differed when infants or parents initiated an interaction, and whether different speech types affected infant attention differently. Most interactions were initiated by infants’ gaze towards an object followed by parent speech (as opposed to being initiated by parent speech). Parents frequently matched their speech to infants’ focus of attention, and this behaviour extended infants’ attention for an object. On the other hand, parents’ speech was less likely to direct infants’ attention towards objects introduced by parents. Qualitative analyses of parent speech revealed more structured speech for familiar, but more varied speech and questions for novel objects. However, no speech types were found to be particularly effective at guiding infants’ attention. These findings illustrate infants’ autonomy in creating and shaping their own learning opportunities, with caregiver input supporting rather than directing exploration. They emphasize infants’ active role – even at a young age – in their own developmental trajectory, and the importance of caregivers’ sensitivity and responsiveness to infants’ displays of curiosity.
