Amye Warren-LeubeckerJohn Neil Bohannon III

Intonation Patterns in Child-Directed Speech:

Mother-Father Differences

Stephanie Faigen

Abigail Kaeser

Shannon Martin

Jessica Samsel

Ashley Sigona

summary

• Study: Whether or not physiological factors or attentional processes alone predict the intonation patterns observed in mothers and fathers speech to children of different ages.

• Subjects: 32 Caucasian, middle-class parents; 2 yr olds; 5 yr olds

• Method: 2 different testing sessions—scoring based on three features:

1. Questions

2. “Name calling”

3. Attentionals

summary

• Results: • Both mothers and fathers increased their

modal frequencies when addressing 2 year olds.• Fathers did so more than mothers

• Mothers increased their modal frequencies for 5 year olds, whereas fathers did not.

Motherese: child-directed speech

• Simpler, shorter, well-formed utterances of limited sentence types

• Greater proportion of concrete words

• More repetition

• Slower rate of speech

• Rise in fundamental frequency (pitch) of the voice

• Correlates with the listening child’s age—the younger the child, the higher the pitch

Motherese studies

• Remick (1971)• Findings:

• Mothers used both a higher median frequency and a greater range of frequencies when talking to young children

• Criticism:

• Not matched across subjects or conditions• Results did not take into account some vowels

that have inherently higher fundamental frequencies than others

• Small speech samples; not equated for number of questions

Motherese studies

• Garnica (1977)• Findings:

• Found significant differences in fundamental frequency and range between maternal speech addressed to adults and to 5-year-olds; more so between adults and 2-year-olds.

• Criticism:

• Speech sample was small (8 sentences per subject)

• Due to memorized sentences, not representational of naturally occurring conversations.

What is the role of exaggerated intonation in CDS?

• Is it determined by physiology?• If so, then sex-differentiated speech registers

should be retained in speech to children, but an interaction between sex of speaker and age of listener should not occur

• Is it to attract and hold the listener’s attention?

• If so, then a main effect of listener age should be observed, but an interaction between sex of speaker and listener age should not be found

Subjects

• 32 Caucasian• Middle-Class Parents from Suburban Atlanta

• 16 Mothers• 16 Fathers

• Half: Parents of 2 Year Olds• Half Girls• Half Boys

• Half: Parents of 5 Year Olds• Half Girls• Half Boys

Design

• 2 x 2 x 2• Gender• Age• Sentence type

• All Parents Spoke to an Adult • Obtain Baseline Values for Dependent

Measures• Fundamental Voice Frequency • Frequency Range

Procedure

• 2 Testing Sessions • Carpeted Rooms in Subject’s Home

• Session 1• 15-20 minutes• Spoke to Children• Engaged in “Natural” Conversation• Toys and Picture Books

• Available to Provide Topics of Conversation

• Parent, Child, and Experimenter Present

Procedure

• Session 2• 8-15 minutes• Parents Spoke to an Adult

• Asked Questions • About Background to Determine Sources of Any

Dialect Variation

• Or Conversed Freely • About Any Topic Other than the Study Itself

• Only Parent and Experimenter Present

results

• Changes/shifts in modal frequency (from adult to child directed speech)• Fathers

• Increased when addressing 2 yr olds (even more than mothers)

• Didn’t differentiate between 5 yr olds and adults(in terms of pitch)

• Mothers• Increased when addressing 2 yr olds• Increase when addressing 5 yr olds

results

• Repeated-measures analysis• Fathers

• Didn’t differentiate between adults and 5 yr olds (in frequency ranges used in conversation)

• Increase their ranges (even more than mothers) when speaking to 2 yr olds

• Mothers• Use larger frequency ranges when speaking to adults and

5 yr olds• Increase normal adult ranges when speaking to both 2

and 5 yr olds

• Use wider ranges of declaratives to only 2 yr olds

Overall conclusions & implications

• The study showed that neither physiological factors nor attentional processes alone predict the intonation patterns observed in mothers’ and fathers’ speech to children of different ages.• More research needs to be done in

order to determine the function of prosodic modifications in child-directed speech and its’ effects on the language development of the listener.

Overall conclusions & implications

• Fathers may overcompensate because they are not around as much as the mothers are

• Cultural sex role expectations and attention span may impact fathers use of more CDS

Criticisms & Suggestions

• Does not take into account impact of SES: white, suburban, middle-class parents are not the norm for all parent-child interactions• Compare/contrast different SES families

• Does not take into account difference between two-income families vs. single-income families (avg. time spent with child)• Compare/contrast stay-at-home-mom

households, single-mother households, two-income households

Criticisms & Suggestions

• The parents knew they were being observed• Control demand characteristics—create an artificial

situation that disguises the true nature of a study

• Only considered age of child and gender of parent when evaluating results• Future study could be done looking at child gender

• Two 15 minute sessions (avg.) on the same day does little to rule out extraneous variables• Future study could be done by collecting data on

multiple days at varying times of day

Questions

1. There was a very small sample size for this study…is this a problem?

2. Do the findings of this study ring true with your experience? Give examples when possible.

3. Do dads “overdo it” for little babies? “Under-do it” for older children? I.e., is it necessary for parents to do as much as they do for little babies? Do older children who don’t get as much CDS from Dad “miss out?”

4. Do Moms “overdo it” for older kids?

5. What role does society/culture play in creating differences between Mom’s and Dad’s CDS?

Questions

6. This study did not include a wide variety of cultures…what differences might you expect among parents of different cultures?

7. This study didn’t include a wide variety of ages…do you think speech to an infant might be different than speech to a toddler?

8. Do you think parents of different ages might vary in how much (how little) they use CDS?

9. Do you think parents with different experiences in their own background (their own childhood) might vary in their use of CDS?

10. What role might the number of children that the parents have play in how much (or how little) they use CDS?

Discussion questions

• Do you think CDS could be influenced by whether the child is an only child? The oldest? The youngest?

• If they were tested in an unfamiliar environment, would the results be different?

• Does the amount of time a mother/father spends with a child impact the results?

• Do you think the results would be different if the study was done in a lower SES area?

• Regardless of these results, what role do you think CDS plays?