Activity Contexts and Child-Directed Speech in Socioeconomically Diverse Argentinian Households

ROSEMBERG, CELIA RENATA; ALAM, FLORENCIA; RAMIREZ, MARÍA LAURA; IBAÑEZ, MARÍA ILEANA

International Journal of Early Childhood

Springer

Año: 2022 vol. 54

0020-7187

This study examines the quantity and quality of child-directed speech acrosshousehold activities in a socioeconomically diverse sample of Argentinian Spanishspeaking children, an understudied population. Thirty children (mean: 14.3 months)and their families were audio-recorded for four hours. The middle two hours weretranscribed and analysed using computerised language analysis (CLAN) to: (a)calculate lexical quantity (tokens) lexical diversity (VOCD) and syntactic complexity(MLU); (b) identify nouns and verbs. The procedures also involve the coding ofregulative versus referential utterances and ongoing activities with defned spatialand temporal boundaries —feeding, play, booksharing, grooming and householdchores— as well as calculating the proportion of 21 types of concrete nouns andaction verbs. Regression analysis showed efects of SES and type of activity on:(a) the quantity, lexical diversity and syntactic complexity of child-directed speech;(b) the proportion of referential and regulative utterances addressed to the child; (c)certain degree of semantic regularity in word-activity associations; and (d) an efectof SES on a variety of nouns and verbs (e.g. toys; utensils). These results highlightqualitative diferences in input across daily activities and the contribution of SES tovariance in lexical diversity and word semantics. Results provide evidence neededto inform public policies responsible for the promotion of early childhood languagedevelopment and education