The relation between infant speech perception and early communicative development: A longitudinal study.
Journal
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
Journal Volume
106
Journal Issue
4
Pages
2245
Date Issued
1999
Author(s)
Abstract
This study investigated the correlation between speech discrimination in young infants and early communicative development. The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory, a parent-report measure of words and gestures, was administered to 20 13-month-old infants who had participated in a study of speech discrimination when they were 6 months old. In the earlier study, the conditioned Head-Turn (HT) technique was used to assess infants’ discrimination of the Finnish vowels /i/ and /y/. Infants were required to meet a criterion of seven out of eight correct responses prior to completing a 30-trial test phase. Results showed that the number of trials infants needed to meet the criterion at 6 months of age was significantly negatively correlated at 13 months with the number of phrases understood (−0.662) and words understood (−0.700). In a regression analysis, the number of criterion trials was shown to be moderately predictive of later communicative development, accounting for approximately 40% and 45% of the variance in phrases understood and words understood. The development of these children will be followed with a second administration of The MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory when they are 16 months of age, to further map the relationship between infant speech perception and early communicative development.
Type
journal article