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Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 16, No. 6, 1987 Fathers' and Mothers' Speech to Infants Jan C. Kruper l'z and Ina C. U~giris 1 Young Fathers" and mothers' speech to infants was obtained during face-to-face interaction in a laboratory setting. Thirty-two father-infant pairs and 40 mother-infant pairs participated. Infants were divided equally by sex and among two age groups with mean ages of 3 and 9 months. Parental utterances were transcribed from videotapes. The utterances were analyzed in terms of their structure and content. There were many similarities in the structure of fathers' and mothers" speech. The speech of both parents was highly repetitive and contained many questions. There were also similarities in the content of fathers' and mothers" speech. Their belief in the infants' ability to think, feel, and act like persons was evident in their speech to the infants. The age of the infant was a significant factor in the analysis of many of the content categories. The sex of the infant and the sex of the parent were also significant factors in several of the analyses. Many investigators have observed that adults talk to children from birth on (e.g., Parke, Grossmann, & Tinsley, 1981; Rheingold & Adams, 1980). Speech directed to infants and language-learning children has been found to have specific characteristics that differentiate it from speech to This paper is based on a thesis submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree. Some of the data reported here were obtained under a grant from the Spencer Foundation to the second author. Thanks go to Brenda McQuillan and Rhonda Reuter for their assistance in reliability coding of tapes and transcripts. Portions of these data were presented at the meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Toronto, 1985. 1Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. 2Address all correspondence to Jan C. Kruper, Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. 597 0090-6905/87/1100-0597505 00/0 1987 Plenum PublishingCorporation

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Page 1: Fathers' and mothers' speech to young infants

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 16, No. 6, 1987

Fathers' and Mothers' Speech to Infants

Jan C. Kruper l'z and Ina C. U~giris 1

Young

Fathers" and mothers' speech to infants was obtained during face-to-face interaction in a laboratory setting. Thirty-two father-infant pairs and 40 mother-infant pairs participated. Infants were divided equally by sex and among two age groups with mean ages of 3 and 9 months. Parental utterances were transcribed from videotapes. The utterances were analyzed in terms of their structure and content. There were many similarities in the structure of fathers' and mothers" speech. The speech of both parents was highly repetitive and contained many questions. There were also similarities in the content of fathers' and mothers" speech. Their belief in the infants' ability to think, feel, and act like persons was evident in their speech to the infants. The age of the infant was a significant factor in the analysis of many of the content categories. The sex of the infant and the sex of the parent were also significant factors in several of the analyses.

Many investigators have observed that adults talk to children from birth on (e.g., Parke, Grossmann, & Tinsley, 1981; Rheingold & Adams, 1980). Speech directed to infants and language-learning children has been found to have specific characteristics that differentiate it from speech to

This paper is based on a thesis submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master's degree. Some of the data reported here were obtained under a grant from the Spencer Foundation to the second author. Thanks go to Brenda McQuillan and Rhonda Reuter for their assistance in reliability coding of tapes and transcripts. Portions of these data were presented at the meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Toronto, 1985.

1Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610. 2Address all correspondence to Jan C. Kruper, Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610.

597

0090-6905/87/1100-0597505 00/0 �9 1987 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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adults (Ferguson, 1977; Snow, 1977). The special features of parental speech to young children are viewed as facilitating communication and providing information helpful in the language acquisition process. Sim- ilarly, the specific characteristics of speech directed to preverbal infants have been interpreted as contributing to mutually engaging interactions. The preponderance of research on speech directed to language-learning children has focused on mothers, but a number of studies have examined fathers' speech as well. However, research on adult speech to young infants has dealt almost exclusively with the speech ofmothers (Kaye, 1980a; Sherrod, Crawley, Petersen, & Bennett, 1978). The present study considered both mothers' and fathers' speech to young infants and analyzed the speech in terms of both its structure and its content.

In speech to preschool-age children, some differences between mothers' and fathers' speech have been found. Fathers have been described as using directives and imperatives more frequently tllan mothers (Gleason, 1975; Malone & Guy, 1982; McLaughlin, Schutz, & White, 1980) and as requesting more clarification from their children (Masur & Gleason, 1980; Rondal, 1980). In contrast, mothers have been characterized as being less directive and more suggestive than fathers in their speech to children (Masur, 1982; McLaughlin et al., 1980). In addition, some studies have indicated that the sex of the child, along with interactions between the sex of the parent and the sex of the child, contributes to the characteristics of verbal interchanges between parents and young children (Masur, 1982; Masur & Gleason, 1980; McLaughlin et al., 1980).

However, other authors have emphasized the similarities in both the structure and content of fathers' and mothers' speech (Golinkoff & Ames, 1979; Hladik & Edwards, 1984). Moreover, it has been reported that the speech of fathers who spend a great deal of time with their children does not differ from those who spend a small amount of time with their children (Hummel, 1982).

Speech to preverbal infants has specific characteristics. When talking to their young infants, mothers speak rhythmically and with much repetition. The patterns in which a mother repeats tempos and content themes are often thought to maintain the infant's attention while also helping the infant to develop expectations about the mother's behavior (Stern, Beebe, Jaffe, & Bennet, 1977; Stern, Spieke, Barnett, & MacKain, 1983). Relying upon the observation that mothers ask ques- tions and interpret their infants' movements and vocalizations as re- sponses, Snow (1977; Snow, De Blauw, & Van Roosmalen, 1979) has argued that when mothers talk to their infants, they are trying to carry on

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conversations with them. Similarly, Kaye (1980a, 1980b, 1982) and Newson (1979) have suggested that in her attempt to better understand her baby and to interpret the baby's actions, the mother thinks of the infant as a person like herself and includes references to the infant's thoughts and feelings in her speech.

The structure of mothers' speech has also been observed to change with the age of the infant. In a longitudinal study of six mother-infant pairs, Stern and co-workers (Stern et al., 1983) found that mothers' speech to their infants was less repetitive and more varied when the infants were 12 months old than when they were 4 months old. On the basis of her study of two mother-infant pairs, Snow (1977) concluded that maternal statements about the infants' internal states and feelings decrease while statements about activities and events in the external world increase over the course of the 1st year of life. As the infant becomes more competent at sharing affect and interests, the mother may be less concerned with verbally confirming the infant's status as a communicating person. Similar observations have been made on larger samples of mother-infant pairs studied cross-sectionally (Kruper & U~giris, 1984; Sherrod et al., 1978).

Although researchers have learned much about maternal speech to infants, there are comparatively few data on fathers' speech to infants. In their study of parents and young infants, Phillips and Parke (cited in Parke & Tinsley, 1981) observed similar patterns of intonation and similar rates of repetition in fathers' and mothers' speech to newborn and 3-month-old infants. Papougek, Papougek, and Bornstein (1985) found that mothers and fathers talked at similar rates and showed similar melodic contours when talking to their 3-month-olds. Kavanaugh and Jirkovsky (1982) also noted similarities in the speech adjustments by four pairs of fathers and mothers to their children's language development over 8 months of observation beginning when the children were 8 months old. Taken together, the results from these studies suggest that the style of paternal and maternal speech to infants may be similar. Although Kavanaugh and Jirkovsky (1982) did include a few semantic categories for coding parents' speech, there are limited data comparing the content of fathers' and mothers' speech to infants.

One of the frequently cited differences between fathers and mothers is in their interaction style with infants; fathers engage in more active physical play than do mothers (Field, 1978; Lamb, 1977; Power & Parke, 1983; Yogman, 1982). It may be expected that these interactional differences between fathers and mothers would also be expressed in their speech to infants if both content and structure of parental speech were

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examined. Moreover, fathers' use of more diverse constructions and more frequent requests for clarification in conversations with their preschool children has also been interpreted as pulling the child closer to more conventional speech (Masur & Gleason, 1980; Rondal, 1980). If fathers adjust less to the child and thereby bridge the child's and adult's worlds, it is of interest to determine whether fathers begin to differ from mothers only when the child starts to acquire language or whether analogous differences between fathers' and mothers' speech to preverbal infants also exist.

One focus of the present study was to compare fathers' and mothers' speech to infants in the 1st year of life. Because parents' beliefs about their infants may be noted in both the structure and content of their speech, it was important to examine what the parents said as well as how they said it. Two age groups of infants were included in order to examine how parents' speech changes during a time when interaction patterns between parents and infants have been shown to change in the second half of the 1st year.

METHOD

For comparison with the data on fathers' speech, transcripts of maternal speech were made from videotapes of mothers interacting with their infants in a comparable situation previously collected at Clark University (U~giris, 1983). Because the methods for recruiting and videotaping the interaction between the parent-infant pairs were identi- cal, the procedures will be described only for the father-infant pairs.

Subjects

Names of parents with infants between the ages of 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 months and 8 1/2 and 9 1/2 months were obtained from birth announce- ments in a local newspaper. Families were sent a letter describing the general nature of the study and received a follow-up phone call. Of the fathers contacted, 57% agreed to take part in the study.

The final sample consisted of 32 father-infant pairs. Forty-two pairs were recruited but 10 father-infant pairs were excluded from the sample for data analysis: 9 pairs because the father and infant completed less than 7 minutes of interaction in the videotaped segment and 1 pair because the poor sound quality on the video made transcribing the father's utterances very difficult.

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Table I. Demographic Characteristics of the Father-Infant and Mother-Infant Samples

Father-infant sample Mother-infant sample

Number of infants Younger group 16 20 Older group 16 20

Mean age of infants (in months) Younger group 3.2 (SD = 6.2) 2.4 (SD = 6.6) Older group 9.1 (SD = 10.1) 8.4 (SD = 9.0)

Percentage of firstborn infants 53% 45%

Mean age of parents (in years) Younger group 29.2 30.6 Older group 28.5 27.9

Percentage of couples in which at least one had some college education 84% 68%

Percentage of mothers working part or full time 62% 28%

Thirty-one of the father-infant pairs were white, one pair was black. All of the mother-infant pairs were white. In terms of social status, 69% of the families included in the father-infant sample and 65% of the families included in the mother-infant sample were in the two highest categories consisting of professional and business-oriented occupations (Hollingshead, 1975). Additional demographic characteristics of the father-infant and mother-infant pairs are summarized in Table I.

Fathers reported that they spent an average of 3 1/2 hours per day during the week and approximately 9 hours per day during the weekend with their infants. The least amount of time that a father reported spending with his baby per day was 10 minutes, the most was 12 hours. There were no age or sex of infant differences in terms of father- involvement time. Approximately 65% of the fathers stated that they engaged in the same activities with their infants as their wives did.

Procedure

Fathers and their infants came to the Child Study Area at Clark University. The father and infant were shown to a room measuring 7 feet by 10 1/2 feet (2.1 m x 3.2 m) and containing an appropriate-size seat

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for the infant, a stool for the father, two wall-mounted cameras, and an overhead microphone. After he seated the infant, the father was asked to sit on the stool facing the baby and to remain seated unless he needed to tend to the infant. He was also asked to play with the baby without toys as he would at home. After the investigator made the necessary camera adjustments, she left the pair to play for approximately 10 minutes.

The session was videotaped and monitored by the investigator from an adjacent room. If the infant cried continuously for more than 30 seconds, the pair was given a short break. In most cases, an attempt was made to continue the taping after several minutes. At least 7 minutes of play were required for a father-infant pair to be included in the sample. A criterion of 9 minutes of interaction had been applied for the inclusion of pairs of mothers and infants in the mother-infant sample.

After completion of the play segment, the investigator asked the father questions focused on his time spent with the baby and his contributions to caregiving activities.

Transcribing and Coding

The utterances of the fathers and mothers were transcribed from the videotapes. An utterance was defined as a vocalization separated from the next by a pause of .5 seconds or longer. Songs and repetitions of nonsense sounds were not counted as utterances. An utterance containing one or more inaudible words was counted as unintelligible. Reliability was obtained on both the transcribing and coding of the utterances.

Two independent judges who were unaware of the expectations in the study each transcribed a different set of eight videotapes, with the tapes equally divided among age groups and by the sex of the infant: four from the sample of fathers and four from the sample of mothers. There was an average of 91.4% agreement between the judges on the total number of utterances transcribed and 93.8% agreement on whether the utterances were intelligible or unintelligible. On utterances both tran- scribers counted as intelligible, agreement on the utterances with exact word-by-word matches and minor one- or two-word discrepancies, which were determined not to affect the coding of the utterances, was 96.2%. Agreement on the form of the utterances--i.e., whether the utterances were questions or statements--was 98.3%.

For each transcript, the number of intelligible utterances was counted and coding was applied only to the intelligible utterances. The percentage of utterances included in repetitive runs (Stern et al., 1977) and the number of runs of repeated utterances were calculated. A

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Fathers' and Mothers' Speech to Young Infants 603

repeated utterance was defined as an utterance that differed from the immediately preceding one by three or fewer words and dealt with the same content. A run was defined as a series of contiguous repeated utterances. Runs were further classified as to whether they were exact runs, consisting of identical repeated utterances except for the addition or deletion of " o h , " "huh , " or "yeah , " or variation runs, consisting of additions, deletions, or exchanges of three or fewer words from the initiating utterance. Coding from identical transcripts, two independent judges achieved an average of 93.3% agreement on coding runs, 87.5% agreement on coding exact runs, and 83.8% agreement on coding variation runs.

Utterances phrased as questions or directives (telling, urging, or requesting the baby to act in a certain way or to be in a certain state) were coded. Agreement between the judges in coding the utterances as questions was 95.9% and as directives was 89.9%.

The categories used to code the content of statements included attention-seeking utterances (greeting the baby or trying to get the baby's attention) and game-related statements (typically occurring in conven- tional games such as derivatives of "gotcha") . Utterances made in lieu of the child ("don ' t bug me, Momma") , often distinguished by the parents' use of a falsetto voice when they made these statements and/or by introductory phrases such as "You ' re saying . . . . " were also noted. Agreement on the attention-seeking utterances, game-related statements, and statements made in lieu of the child were 87.6%, 80.1%, and 95.8%, respectively.

Other coding categories for content were interpretations (reflecting an inference concerning the babies feelings, needs, or wishes), comments (describing the observed appearance or behavior of the baby), and explanations (providing the baby with additional information about the environment, an action to be directed to the baby, or an external event). Agreement on coding averaged 87.2% on interpretations, 84.3% on comments, and 86.0% on explanations.

RESULTS

Because of the large variation in the total number of utterances made by the individual fathers and mothers, for each transcript, the number of utterances in each category, e.g. questions, was converted to a proportion of the total number of utterances made by that parent. For the purpose of data analysis, arcsin transformations were performed on these proportions to help normalize the distributions. Two-way ANOVAs, with age of

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Table II. The Structure of Parents' Speech in Relation to Infants' Age

Age of infant (in months)

2-3 V2 8-91/~

Category Fathers Mothers Fathers Mothers

Mean number of intelligible utterances per minute 15.9 13.2 12.0 15.3

Mean percentage of utterances in runs 47.4 57.8 40.9 56.2 Exact runs 61.3 69.1 65.0 65.8 Variation runs 38.7 30.9 35.0 34.2

infant and sex of infant as factors, were performed separately on the transformed proportions of utterances in the categories of interest for the sample of fathers and for the sample of mothers. Three-way ANOVAs, with age of infant, sex of infant, and sex of parent as factors, were also computed on the transformed proportions. By analyzing the data in this manner, effects of the infants' age and sex on the fathers' and mothers' speech could be identified along with the differences between fathers' and mothers' speech.

The Structure of Parents' Speech

One of the goals of the study was to compare the structure of paternal and maternal speech and to examine the differences in the structural characteristics of parents' speech to infants of different ages. To compensate for the difference in the amount of interaction time between parent-infant pairs, the number of intelligible utterances per minute made by each parent was calculated. Although no significant effects for the age or the sex of the infant were found with the sample of mothers, a significant age effect was seen with the father sample, F(1, 28) = 4.49, p < .05. Fathers of the older infants made approximately 12 utterances per minute, whereas fathers of the younger infants made approximately 16 utterances per minute. The three-way ANOVA showed a significant interaction between the age of the infant and the sex of the parent, F(1, 64) = 7.45, p < .01. Mothers of younger infants made fewer utterances per minute than mothers of older infants, but the opposite pattern was shown by the fathers (see Table II).

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Table III. The Form of Parents' Speech in Relation to Infants' Age

1

Age of infant (in months)

2-31A 8-91/~ Category

(mean percentage) Fathers Mothers Fathers Mothers

Questions 46.6 4t .8 42.7 39.8 Directives 11.0 14.6 6.9 20.9

Redundancy of Utterances. The sex of the parent was a significant factor in the three-way ANOVA on the proportion of utterances in repetitive runs, F(1, 64) = 18.26, p < .01. An average of 44.15% of fathers' utterances was included in runs compared to 56.98% of maternal utterances. There was also a significant interaction between the age of the infant and the sex of the parent, F(1, 64) = 4.08, p < .05, on the proportion of runs containing variations. Fathers of older infants had a smaller proportion of variation runs than fathers of younger infants, but mothers of older infants had a higher proportion of variation runs than mothers of younger infants. A complementary pattern was seen in the proportion of exact runs; however, these differences did not reach statistical significance. Data on the frequency of the types of runs in the two samples are presented in Table II.

Form of Utterances. Questions were a very prominent type of utterance, constituting 44.68% and 40.78% of the total number of utterances for fathers and mothers, respectively. There were no signifi- cant effects for the age or the sex of the infant or the sex of the parent.

Directives made up a smaller proportion of the utterances than questions, totaling 9.00% of fathers' utterances and 17.75% of mothers' utterances. In almost 80% of all parental directives, the babies were encouraged to act in specific ways. In contrast to the greater use of directives by mothers of older infants, fathers of older infants had a smaller proportion of directives than fathers of younger infants. How- ever, the factors of age of the infant, F(1, 64) = 3.81, and sex of the parent, F(1, 64) = 3.11, only approached significance, p < . 10. Table III contains the data on the proportions of questions and directives in the parents' speech.

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606

(mean percentage by sex of infant)

Kruper and Uigiris

Table IV. The Content of Parents' Speech in Relation to Infant 's Sex and Age

Age of infant (in months)

Category 2_31�89 8_91/2

Fathers Mothers Fathers Mothers

Comments Female 6.1 12.6 3.4 5.8 Male 5.4 10.1 5.0 7.4

Game statements Female 5.7 4.7 7.2 8.6 Male 0.9 3.0 1.0 12.4

Explanations Female 2.3 3.1 2.1 3.1 Male 3.5 6.2 3.0 5.1

The Content of Parents' Speech

Other goals of the study were to identify differences in the content of the speech of fathers and mothers and in parents' utterances to infants of different ages. The presentation of the findings is organized by significant effects for the sex of the parent, the sex of the infant, and the age of the infant. Significant interaction effects between these factors are also given.

Sex of Parent and Interaction Effects. The sex of the parent was a significant factor in the three-way ANOVAs calculated on the proportion of comments and game-related statements (see Table IV).

A significantly smaller proportion of comments was contained in fathers' speech to infants at both ages than in mothers' speech, F(1, 64) = 7.89, p < .05. The sex of the parent was also a significant factor in the three-way ANOVA computed on game-related statements, F(1, 64) = 23.95, p < .01. The sex of the infant was the salient factor in the proportion of game statements made by fathers, F(1, 28) = 11.53, p < .01, but the age of the infant was the significant factor in the proportion of game statements made by mothers, F(1, 36) = 11.20, p < .0 l. In the three-way ANOVA computed on the proportion of game-related state- ments in parents' speech, the interaction effect between the sex of the parent and the age of the infant was significant, F(I , 64) = 13.93, p < .01.

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Table V, The Content of Parents' Speech in Relation to Infants' Age

Age of infant (in months)

2-31/2 8-91/2 Category

(mean percentage) Fathers Mothers Fathers Mothers

Attention-seeking utterances 4.6 3.0 6.8 8.2 Game statements 3.2 3.8 4.1 10.5 Interpretations 11.8 12.2 6.9 7.9 Comments 5.8 11.4 4.2 6.6

Sex of Infant. The sex of the infant was a significant factor in the proportion of explanations and game statements in parental utterances (see Table IV). The three-way ANOVA calculated on the proportion of explanations in parents' speech to their infants showed a significant effect for the sex of the infant, F(1, 64) = 5.94, p < .05. Both fathers and mothers of male infants had a higher proportion of explanations than parents of female infants.

Game-related utterances by fathers to female infants at both ages averaged 6.45% of the total utterances, but to male infants they averaged less than 1.00% of the utterances, F(1, 28) -- 11.53, p < .01. The sex of the infant was also a significant factor in the three-way ANOVA, F(1, 64) = 13.28, p < .01. The proportion of game-related statements was higher for mothers of female infants than for mothers of male infants for the younger infants; however, for the older group, the proportion was higher for the mothers of sons than for mothers of daughters.

Age of Infant. In the utterances made by mothers, there was a significant age effect in the proportion of attention-seeking statements, F(1, 36) = 6.35, p < .05. Approximately 8.15% of the total utterances of mothers of older infants were attention-seeking statements compared with 3.00% of the utterances to the younger infants. A similar though not significant pattern was seen in the father sample, with these statements constituting 6.75% and 4.60% of utterances of fathers to the older and younger group, respectively. The age of the infant was a significant factor in the three-way ANOVA, F(1, 64) = 6.00, p < .05. Data on attention-seeking statements are shown in Table V.

Similarly, in the mother sample, the age effect for the game-related statements was significant, F(1, 36) = 11.20, p < .01. These statements

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constituted 3.85% of the utterances of mothers to the younger infants and 10.50% of the utterances of mothers to the older infants. Although the three-way ANOVA showed a significant effect for the age of the infant, F(1, 64) = 23.91, p < .01, the age effect was not significant on the proportion of game-related statements in fathers' speech to infants when taken separately. Data on the proportions of game-related statements in the parents' speech are shown in Table V.

In the proportion of interpretations in parents' speech, the age of the infant was a significant factor for both samples combined, F(1, 64) = 13.88, p < .01, for the mother sample, F(1, 36) = 6.96, p < .05, and for the father sample, F(1, 28) = 7.25, p < .05. The percentage of interpretations in fathers' and mothers' speech was higher with younger infants than with older infants (see Table V).

Both fathers and mothers of younger infants had a higher proportion of comments than parents of older infants (see Table V). The age effect in the proportion of comments among parental utterances was significant for both samples combined, F(1, 64) = 6.36, p < .05, and for the sample of mothers, F(1, 36) = 4.14, p < .05. A similar trend was seen in the father sample, but it only approached significance, F(1, 28) = 3.55, p < .10.

Parents made few statements in lieu of the child. However, significantly more parents of older infants made these statements than parents of younger infants. Significant differences were also found between the number of parents of older infants and the number of parents of younger infants who made several specific kinds of statements. Significantly more parents of younger infants made interpretations of infant affect, asked the infants for permission before acting, and gave explanations of actions to be directed toward them. The numbers of parents who made these types of statements are shown in Table VI.

DISCUSSION

The results of this study support and extend many of the previous observations on mothers' speech to infants. For example, the high rate of redundancy in mothers' speech reported by other investigators (e.g., Kaye, 1980a; Snow, 1977; Stern et al., 1983) was found to characterize fathers' speech in the present study. However, there were some differ- ences between fathers' and mothers' speech that must be looked at carefully. In addition, effects of the infant's age and sex on the parents' speech must also be considered.

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Fathers' and Mothers' Speech to Young Infants

Table VI. Age Differences in the Number of Parents Making Specific Types of Utterances

Age of infant (in months)

Category 2-31/2

609

8 - 9 V 2 Significance of difference a

Statements in lieu of child 12 Explanations of actions 23 Interpretations of affect 21 Requests for permission 11

aFisher Exact Probability Test.

20 p < .01 7 p < .01

13 p < .01 2 p < .01

The finding in the present study that mothers' speech contained a significantly higher proportion of repetitions than fathers' speech sug- gests that mothers may have more standard phrases ("Tell me a story") that they frequently repeat than do fathers. There was also some evidence that mothers of older infants organize their speech into more varied sequences when talking to them, but this did not seem to be the case for fathers. Although mothers' speech to older infants contained a higher proportion of variation runs than mothers' speech to younger infants, the opposite pattern was seen in fathers' speech. These findings suggest that mothers may be more attuned to older infants' developing communicative abilities and begin to assume more of a teaching role in helping their infants develop additional skills by increasingly introducing slight vari- ations in the structure and content of their speech. In addition, these results parallel the observations that fathers adjust their speech less to language-learning children than do mothers (Masur & Gleason, 1980; Rondal, 1980).

Fathers and mothers also seem to differ in their use of directives. Although the interaction between the parent's sex and age of the infant was not significant, mothers of older infants had a higher proportion of directives in their speech than mothers of younger infants, while the opposite trend was seen in fathers' speech. In a study of mothers, including a larger age range of infants, a significant increase in the proportion of directives was seen in the mothers' speech to infants between the ages of 2 1/2 and 11 1/2 months of age (Kruper & U~giris, 1984). Because there was much individual variation in parents' use of directives, it is possible that the samples in the present study were not large enough to allow the age trends to become reliably evident.

As the infants gained motor skills, mothers were likely to encourage

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them to try out some new skills ("Do patty-cake") while discouraging them from trying others ("Don' t stand up in the chair"). In contrast, fathers' use of directives and comments was lower overall and might have declined with the older infants because they were less familiar with how to channel the infants' play activities and less concerned about restricting certain motoric actions than were mothers. The greater use of directives by mothers, especially mothers of older infants, contrasts with the reports of fathers' greater use of directives and imperatives in their speech to preschoolers than mothers (Gleason, 1975; Malone & Guy, 1982; McLaughlin et al., 1980). When their infants are young, fathers may not have many expectations about how their infants will act. However, when their children are older, fathers may have more definite expectations about their behavior and may be more likely to comment upon and direct their activities. Taken together, these findings suggest that changes in parents' speech over time are not necessarily linear in nature and may be influenced by different parental expectations for infants and young children.

The most notable difference in the content of fathers' and mothers' speech was in their use of game-related statements. This finding parallels the frequently cited difference between fathers and mothers with respect to their style of play with their infants. In particular, fathers engage in more active physical play with their infants than do mothers (e.g., Lamb, 1977). Mothers appeared to have a number of well-rehearsed activities they did with their infants, e.g., "gotcha" games. Fathers of female infants seem to have incorporated these games into their repertoire, at least for the laboratory sessions, to a much greater extent than fathers of male infants. Although fathers seemed to be differentiating female infants from male infants in terms of the games they play with them, mothers did not. There have also been some suggestions in research with older infants and children that fathers are more likely to treat girls and boys differently than are mothers (Fagot, 1978; Langlois & Downs, 1980; Snow, Jacklin, & Maccoby, 1983; Tauber, 1979). Such differentiation by fathers, especially with regard to preferred types of game-playing with daughters and sons, appears to have roots in early interaction.

The fathers' low frequency of organized game routines with accom- panying utterances seen in this study appears to contrast with Yogman's (1982) report that fathers played games more often than mothers in a 2-minute interaction with their 1- to 6-month old infants. Aside from sample differences, the definition of games may have been more restrictive in this study than in Yogman's study. To more fully understand the findings on parents' involvement in games and use of game statements, further studies of parent-infant interaction are needed.

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The sex of the infant was also a significant factor in the parents' use of explanations. Fathers and mothers of male infants had a higher proportion of explanations than parents of female infants. There are several possible reasons for this observation. First, the male infants may have been more physically active in looking around the room and the parents may have been prompted to comment on their sons' inferred interest in the environment. Another possibility is that parents may have thought that their sons should be learning more about the world and so explained their own actions as well as the surroundings to the male infants to a greater extent than to female infants. This is plausible because it has been found that adults give different interpretations of the actions of the same infant depending upon whether the infant has been identified as male or female (e.g., Condry & Condry, 1976).

To better understand the contribution of various factors to parents' greater use of explanations with male infants, the videotapes of the parent-infant interactions were examined in an attempt to identify overt behaviors on the part of the infants that prompted parents to give explanations. In a vast majority of the instances, there did not appear to be any specific behavior by the infant prior to the parent's explanation. This observation suggests that parents may be responding either to subtle actions that are not obvious to someone unfamiliar with the infant or to their own thoughts primarily generated by their belief systems.

In addition to the findings already mentioned, analyses on the content of parents' speech suggest that both fathers and mothers talk differently to infants of different ages. The finding that fathers as well as mothers of younger infants had a higher proportion of interpretations and comments indicates that communication about the affect and actior~s of the infants may be important for parents of younger infants. In contrast, parents' speech to older infants may reflect the parents' recognition of the infants' increasing self-direction and the parents' attempts to channel the infants' activities into specific kinds of interactions as has been observed in studies of mothers' speech to infants (Penman, Cross, Milgrom- Friedman, & Mearnes, 1983). In particular, the stating of utterances for the babies made primarily by parents of the older group of infants may indicate the parents' awareness of the infants' emerging language ability.

The most striking characteristic of the parents' speech was their way of treating their infants as communicating partners. They asked the infants questions and interpreted the infants' actions as responses, occasionally responded for the infants, and commented on the infants' thoughts, feelings, and interests. The way fathers had of treating their young infants as human beings with rights and status was particularly

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evident in the fathers' utterances to the younger infants. They asked the infants' permission before performing acts and gave explanations of acts they were going to direct to the baby. As expected, fathers of the younger infants had a higher proportion of interpretations and comments than fathers of the older infants. These data on fathers extend Snow's (1977) and Malatesta and Haviland's (1982) observations that mothers of younger infants make more interpretations than mothers of older infants. As infants become better communicators of their intentions and feelings, both fathers and mothers may feel less of a need to overtly try to make sense out of the infants' actions and facial expressions. The parents may also not need to verbally reassure themselves that the babies are persons like themselves, capable of feelings and thoughts (Kaye, 1980b, 1982; Newson, 1977).

In most respects, fathers' and mothers' speech to young infants was similar. However, fathers' speech overall was less repetitive and less directive. Fathers also included fewer game-related statements in their speech, especially to male infants. These data suggest that fathers are less likely to adjust certain characteristics of their speech when talking to infants than are mothers. In addition, adjustments by both mothers and fathers in their speech depending upon the sex of the infant (e.g., greater use of explanation when talking to male infants) suggest that the sex of the child is an important factor to be considered, especially in content analyses of parents' speech.

As in the case of the studies of parents' speech to preschoolers, in this study of parents' speech to infants of different ages, there was a combination of similarities and differences in fathers' and mothers' speech. In addition, there were still many individual differences in all categories. It would be important to identify the variables that contribute to these individual differences in the nature of parents' speech to infants, in addition to the factors of parents' sex, infant's sex, and infant's age examined in the present' study.

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