The role of siblings on infant language exposure in daylong audio recordings

This study investigates how family characteristics contribute to language produced in homes. Specifically exploring the effects of older siblings on the amounts and types of child- directed and overheard speech that infants hear. To address this, this study analyzed 76 daylong audio home recordings from 26 American families with infants between the ages of 6-12 months. To annotate the recordings, each audio was randomly sampled for a total of 2 hours that was comprised of 30 second intervals. Each interval was coded for all spoken utterances for all speakers and to whom the speech was addressed to. Findings revealed that infants with older siblings had about half as much speech directed to them as did infants without older siblings. This effect was entirely driven by contexts in which the older sibling was physically present; no differences in amounts of directed speech when older siblings were not present were observed. However, when combining all child-directed input (to either the infant or the siblings) there were no differences between families with and without siblings. Further, the nature of overheard speech changed when a sibling was present, not simply because the sibling added another speaker to the environment, but because other speakers’ distribution of speech differed when the sibling was physically present during daily activities. The set of individuals in a home have substantial consequences for the speech that is produced and amounts of overheard- and child- directed speech may vary more widely in American homes than previously assumed.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Galindo, Maily

Contributors dc:contributor

• Montag, Jessica L

• child-directed speech
• overheard speech
• siblings
• daylong audio recordings

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Maily Galindo

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/132705

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/132705