Journal article
Preverbal communication complexity in infants
Infancy, Vol.25(1), pp.4-21
01/2020
DOI: 10.1111/infa.12318
PMCID: PMC7055680
PMID: 32132879
Abstract
The development of prelinguistic communication in typically developing infants is marked by changes in complexity as well as frequency, yet most measures focus on frequency. In the current study, we used the Communication Complexity Scale (CCS) to measure prelinguistic complexity of typically developing infants in a cross-sectional sample of 6-, 8-, 10-, and 12-month-olds (N = 204) during semi-structured play interaction. For each toy/interactive episode, infants' highest level of communication complexity (ranging from 0 for no response to 12 for multi-word verbalization), for both joint attention (i.e., social) and behavior regulation (e.g., requesting) functions, was scored. In addition, the same interaction was coded for frequency of all prelinguistic communication acts. Results of multivariate models indicated age-related differences in prelinguistic complexity. Measures of prelinguistic complexity and frequency evidenced moderate to strong correlations, with age-related differences by function (joint attention and behavior regulation). Significant associations with parent-report communication questionnaires were observed for both complexity and frequency measures. Results indicate that evaluating complexity of infant preverbal communication skill with the CCS is a valuable approach that can meaningfully index developmental differences in prelinguistic and early linguistic communication.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Preverbal communication complexity in infants
- Creators
- Brenda Salley - University of Kansas Medical CenterNancy C. Brady - University of KansasLesa Hoffman - University of KansasKandace Fleming - University of Kansas
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Infancy, Vol.25(1), pp.4-21
- DOI
- 10.1111/infa.12318
- PMID
- 32132879
- PMCID
- PMC7055680
- NLM abbreviation
- Infancy
- ISSN
- 1525-0008
- eISSN
- 1532-7078
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Number of pages
- 18
- Grant note
- Kansas Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center HD 002528; HD 075886; HD 076903 / Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; United States Department of Health & Human Services; National Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA; NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 01/2020
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Quantitative Foundations
- Record Identifier
- 9984371084302771
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