Cover not available
Article published In:
The role of input on early first language morphosyntactic development: Le rôle de l’input sur le développement morphosyntaxique précoce en langue maternelle
Edited by Sophie Kern, Frédérique Gayraud and Florence Chenu
[Language, Interaction and Acquisition 5:1] 2014
► pp. 117–136

Intermodal synchrony as a form of maternal responsiveness

Association with language development

| Bielefeld University, CITEC, Germany
Research findings indicate that synchrony between events in two different modalities is a key concept in early social learning. Our longitudinal pilot study with 14 mother–child dyads is the first to support the idea that synchrony between action and language as a form of responsive behaviour in mothers relates to later language acquisition in their children. We conducted a fine-grained coding of multimodal behaviour within the dyad during an everyday diapering activity when the children were three and six months old. When the children attained 24 months, their mothers completed language surveys; this data was then related to the dyadic measures in early interaction. We propose a ‘role-switching’ model according to which it is important for three-month-olds to be exposed to multimodal input for a great deal of time, whereas for six-month-old infants, the mother should respond to the infant’s attention and provide multimodal input when her child is gazing at her.
Keywords: acoustic packaging, social language learning, early mother-infant interaction, multimodal maternal responsiveness
Published online: 7 July 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lia.5.1.06roh
References (45)
Bahrick, L.E., Lickliter, R. & Flom, R. (2004). Intersensory redundancy guides the development of selective attention, perception and cognition in infancy. Current Directions in Psychological Science 131, 99-102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakeman, R. & Adamson, L.B. (1984). Coordinating attention to people and objects in mother-infant and peer-infant interaction. Child Development 551, 1278-1289. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Balaban, M.T. & Waxman, S.R. (1997). Do words facilitate object categorization in nine-month-old infants? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 641, 3-26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bates, E., Marchman, V., Thal, D., Fenson, L., Dale, P., Reznick, J.S., Reilly, J., Hartung, J. (1994). Developmental and stylistic variation in the composition of early vocabulary. Journal of Child Language 211, 85-123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bortfeld, H., Shaw, K. & Depowski, N. (2013). Disentangling the influence of salience and familiarity on infant word learning: methodological advances. Frontiers in Psychology 4, 174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brand, R.J. & Tapscott, S. (2007). Acoustic packaging of action sequences by infants. Infancy 111, 321-332. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cangelosi, A., Metta, G., Sagerer, G., Nolfi, S., Nehaniv, C., Fischer, K. Tani, J., Belphaeme, T., Sandini, G., Fadiga, L., Wrede, B., Rohlfing, K., Tuci, E., Dautenhahn, K., Saunders, J. & Zeschel, A. (2010). Integration of action and language knowledge: a roadmap for developmental robotics. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 21, 167-195. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colas, A. (1999). Introducing infants to referential events: a development study of maternal ostensive marking in French. Journal of Child Language 261, 113-131. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colombo, J. & Bundy, R. (1983). Infant response to auditory familiarity and novelty. Infant Behavior and Development 61, 305-311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cowley, S.J. (2011). Taking a language stance. Ecological Psychology 231, 185-209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferry, A.L., Hespos, S.J. & Waxman, S.R. (2010). Categorization in 3- and 4-month-old infants: an advantage of words over tones. Child Development 811, 472-479. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischer, K., Foth, K., Rohlfing, K.J. & Wrede, B. (2011). Mindful tutors: linguistic choice and action demonstration in speech to infants and robots. Interaction Studies 121, 134-161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gogate, L.J. & Bahrick, L.E. (2001). Intersensory redundancy and 7-month-old infants’ memory for arbitrary syllable-object relations. Infancy 21, 219-231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gogate, L.J., Bahrick, L.E. & Watson, J. (2000). A study of multimodal motherese: the role of temporal synchrony between verbal labels and gestures. Child Development 711, 878-894. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gogate, L.J., Prince, C.G. & Matatyaho, D.J. (2009). Two-month-old infants’ sensitivity to changes in arbitrary syllable–object pairings: the role of temporal synchrony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 351, 508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Göksun, T., Hirsh-Pasek, K. & Golinkoff, R.M. (2010). Trading spaces: carving up events for learning language. Perspectives on Psychological Science 51, 33-42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Golinkoff, R.M. & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2006). The emergentist coalition model of word learning in children has implications for language in aging. In E. Bialystok & F. Craik (eds.), Lifespan cognition: mechanisms of change(207-222). New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grimm, H. (2000). Sprachentwicklungstest für zweijährige Kinder (SETK-2). Göttingen: Hogrefe.Google Scholar
Grimm, H. & Doil, H. (2000). Elternfragebögen für die Früherkennung von Risikokindern (ELFRA). Göttingen: Hogrefe.Google Scholar
Hirsh-Pasek, K. & Golinkoff, R.M. (1996). The origins of grammar. Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hollich, G., Hirsh-Pasek, K. & Golinkoff, R. (2000). The emergentist coalition model. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 651, 17-29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, F.D. (1974). Visual attention, auditory stimulation, and language discrimination in young infants. Chicago: University of Chicago Press( Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development Nr. 39).Google Scholar
Markova, G. & Legerstee, M. (2006). Contingency, imitation, and affect sharing: foundations of infants’ social awareness. Developmental Psychology 421, 132-141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Masur, E.F., Flynn, V. & Eichorst, D.L. (2005). Maternal responsive and directive behaviours and utterances as predictors of children’s lexical development. Journal of Child Language 321, 63-91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCartney, J.S. & Panneton, R. (2005). Four-month-olds’ discrimination of voice changes in multimodal displays as a function of discrimination protocol. Infancy 71, 163-182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McGillion, M.L., Herbert, J.S., Pine, J.M., Keren-Portnoy, T., Vihman, M.M. & Matthews, D.E. (2013). Supporting early vocabulary development: what sort of responsiveness matters? IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 5(3), 240-248. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meyer, M., Hard, B., Brand, R.J., McGarvey, M. & Baldwin, D.A. (2011). Acoustic packaging: maternal speech and action synchrony. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 31, 154-162. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Muir, D. & Field, J. (1979). Newborn infants orient to sound. Child Development 501, 431-436. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nomikou, I. & Rohlfing, K.J. (2011). Language does something: body action and language in maternal input to three-month-olds. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 31, 113-128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nomikou, I., Rohlfing, K.J. & Szufnarowska, J. (2013). Educating attention: recruiting, maintaining and framing eye contact in early natural mother-infant interactions. Interaction Studies 141, 240-267. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plunkett, K., Hu, J.-F. & Cohen, L.B. (2008). Labels can override perceptual categories in early infancy. Cognition 1061, 665-681. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rączaszek-Leonardi, J. (2009). Symbols as constraints: the structuring role of dynamics and self-organization in natural language. Pragmatics & Cognition 171, 653-676. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rączaszek-Leonardi, J., Nomikou, I. & Rohlfing, K.J. (2013). Young children’s dialogical actions: The beginnings of purposeful intersubjectivity. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 5(3), 210-221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rolf, M., Hanheide, M. & Rohlfing, K.J. (2009). Attention via synchrony: making use of multimodal cues in social learning. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 11, 55-67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sachse, S., Saracino, M. & von Sucholodetz, W. (2007). Prognostische Validität des ELFRA-1 bei der Früherkennung von Sprachentwicklungsstörungen. Klinische Pädiatrie 2191, 17-22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, H.R. (1984). The child’s entry into a social world. N.Y.: Academic PressGoogle Scholar
Schillingmann, L., Wrede, B. & Rohlfing, K.J. (2009). A computational model of acoustic packaging. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 11, 226-237. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., Bornstein, M.H. & Baumwell, L. (2001). Maternal responsiveness and children’s achievement of language milestones. Child Development 721, 748-767. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tamis-LeMonda, C., Kuchirko, Y. & Tafuro, L. (2013). From action to interaction: infant object exploration and mothers’ contingent responsiveness. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development 5(3), 202-209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Villiers Rader, N. & Zukow-Goldring, P. (2010). How the hands control attention during early word learning. Gesture 101, 202-221. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vouloumanos, A. & Werker, J.F. (2007). Tuned to the signal: the privileged status of speech for young infants. Developmental Science 71, 270-276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zacks, J.M. & Tversky, B. (2001). Event structure in perception and conception. Psychological Bulletin 1271, 3-21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zacks, J.M. & Swallow, K.M. (2007). Event segmentation. Current Directions in Psychological Science 161, 80-84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zukow-Goldring, P. (1996). Sensitive caregiving fosters the comprehension of speech: when gestures speak louder than words. Early Development and Parenting 51, 195-211. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2006). Assisted imitation: affordances, effectivities and the mirror system in early language development. In M.A. Arbib (ed.), From action to language via the mirror neuron system (469-500). New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (17)

Cited by 17 other publications

Arendt, Birte, Ines Bose & Kati Hannken-Illjes
2024. Doing participation in child talk and interactional synchronicity—introduction to the special section. European Journal of Psychology of Education 39:3 ► pp. 1667 ff. DOI logo
Ishikawa, Mitsuhiko & Shoji Itakura
2024. The development of social learning: from pedagogical cues to selective learning. Frontiers in Psychology 15 DOI logo
Wildt, Eugenia & Katharina J. Rohlfing
2024. The impact of maternal gaze responsiveness on infants’ gaze following and later vocabulary development. Infant Behavior and Development 74 ► pp. 101917 ff. DOI logo
Jover, Marianne & Maya Gratier
2023. Toward a multimodal and continuous approach of infant-adult interactions. Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems 24:1 ► pp. 5 ff. DOI logo
Bazhydai, Marina, Han Ke, Hannah Thomas, Malcolm K. Y. Wong & Gert Westermann
2022. Investigating the effect of synchronized movement on toddlers’ word learning. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Daniel, Stuart, Dawn Wimpory, Jonathan T. Delafield-Butt, Stephen Malloch, Ulla Holck, Monika Geretsegger, Suzi Tortora, Nigel Osborne, Benjaman Schögler, Sabine Koch, Judit Elias-Masiques, Marie-Claire Howorth, Penelope Dunbar, Karrie Swan, Magali J. Rochat, Robin Schlochtermeier, Katharine Forster & Pat Amos
2022. Rhythmic Relating: Bidirectional Support for Social Timing in Autism Therapies. Frontiers in Psychology 13 DOI logo
Vanoncini, Monica, Natalie Boll-Avetisyan, Birgit Elsner, Stefanie Hoehl & Ezgi Kayhan
2022. The role of mother-infant emotional synchrony in speech processing in 9-month-old infants. Infant Behavior and Development 69 ► pp. 101772 ff. DOI logo
GAMPE, Anja, Leonie HARTMANN & Moritz M. DAUM
2020. Dynamic interaction patterns of monolingual and bilingual infants with their parents. Journal of Child Language 47:1 ► pp. 45 ff. DOI logo
Rohlfing, Katharina J., Giuseppe Leonardi, Iris Nomikou, Joanna Raczaszek-Leonardi & Eyke Hullermeier
2020. Multimodal Turn-Taking: Motivations, Methodological Challenges, and Novel Approaches. IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems 12:2 ► pp. 260 ff. DOI logo
San San Kyaw, Khin, Sandar Tin Tin, Lisa Underwood & Cameron Grant
2020. Effects of Home Language Environment and Household Crowding on Early Expressive Language Development. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics 41:4 ► pp. 289 ff. DOI logo
Di Paolo, Ezequiel A.
2019. Process and Individuation: The Development of Sensorimotor Agency. Human Development 63:3-4 ► pp. 202 ff. DOI logo
Fantasia, Valentina, Laura Galbusera, Corinna Reck & Alessandra Fasulo
2019. Rethinking Intrusiveness: Exploring the Sequential Organization in Interactions Between Infants and Mothers. Frontiers in Psychology 10 DOI logo
Rączaszek-Leonardi, Joanna, Nicole Rossmanith, Iris Nomikou & Katharina J. Rohlfing
2019. Levels of Coordination in Early Semantic Development. Psychology of Language and Communication 23:1 ► pp. 212 ff. DOI logo
Wermter, Stefan, Sascha Griffiths & Stefan Heinrich
2017. Crossmodal lifelong learning in hybrid neural embodied architectures. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40 DOI logo
Leonardi, Giuseppe, Iris Nomikou, Katharina J. Rohlfing & Joanna Raczaszek-Leonardi
2016. 2016 Joint IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL-EpiRob), ► pp. 288 ff. DOI logo
Rohlfing, Katharina J., Britta Wrede, Anna-Lisa Vollmer & Pierre-Yves Oudeyer
2016. An Alternative to Mapping a Word onto a Concept in Language Acquisition: Pragmatic Frames. Frontiers in Psychology 7 DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2020. Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 27], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.