Child characteristics and maternal speech
- 17 February 1987
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Journal of Child Language
- Vol. 14 (3), 481-492
- https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305000900010254
Abstract
Infant temperament characteristics of activity level, task persistence and affect were measured in an eight-month longitudinal study of eight children. Discourse and pragmatic features of their mothers' speech, specifically total number of utterances and use of self-repetitions, directives and attention-getting devices, were also monitored. Pearson correlation analysis suggested complex interactions between maternal speech and infant temperament. In some cases a maternal speech pattern appears to maintain an infant temperament characteristic. In others, a child characteristic appears to maintain a maternal speech form. The results are used to argue that non-linguistic child behaviours may influence maternal speech and deserve further attention in investigations of the link between maternal speech and child-language development.Keywords
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