Seminar 2: Article Review

Social and linguistic input in low-income African American mother-child dyads from 1 month through
2 years: Relations to vocabulary development
and
Child-directed speech: relation to socioeconomic status, knowledge of child developmental child
vocabulary skill.

Presented by,
Bawani Sandrasegaran (TGB130011)
Grace Saran Galawat (TGB130010)

Background
Main focus: Field of child linguistics specifically in
vocabulary development.
Aim:
i) to review the eloquent of linguistic and
social input in developing the childrens
vocabulary.
ii) to regulate the reason of different
background of socioeconomic (SES) of
American parents communicate differently
with their children.

Problem Statement
The first journal stated
that the researchers had
found out the
insufficiency of study
on the significance of
linguistic and social
input in child language
development among
ethnic minority families
and communities with
different socioeconomic
levels.

Second journal was

about the crucial
question concern on
the reason of more well
literate and
knowledgeable parents
talk more and apply a
more complex and
assorted language with
their children than less
literate and
knowledgeable parents.

Theoretical Framework
Article 1:
I. Mothers who respond
verbally to their infants Attentional
(Shimpi & Hunttenlocher, 2007) focus
as
well as their vocalizations (Rollins &
Snow, 1998) have infants who are
more
productive with language.

Article 2:
I) High SES mothers use longer
utterances & more different
words when they talk to their
children than low - SES
mothers and, in turn, their
children have larger
vocabularies. (Hoff, 2003)

ii. Mothers who more often responded

contingently to their infants
vocalizations had children who were
more developmentally advanced than
infants whose mothers responses
were
not contingent (Rollins & Snow, 1998)

II) Low-SES mothers are found to

talk less & use less varied
vocabulary during interaction
with their children than highSES mothers. (Hart & Risley,
1995)

Research Methodology
Article 1
Participants
30 mother-child dyads
Low income parents
Drug-free members; recruited via
screening interviews
Average age (time of giving birth): 25 yrs
9 months
SES : both the time when mother was
pregnant & the child was 10 yrs old ( 2
Factor Index of Social Position;
Hollingshead & Redlich, 1958)
Average schooling: 11.4 yrs
Child age: 0-24 months
*mothers were the primary caretaker
Procedures
Data videotaped. (Uni office; like living
room)
Duration varies: 10-30 mins
Researcher was present in all sessions
2 independent researchers for
transcription & verified by 3rd researcher
(check content)

Article 2
Participants
47 toddlers and their primary
caregivers
Average family income:
$62889 per annum
Child age: 2-6 yrs old
Ethnicity: 34 parents are
Caucasian, 5 African American,
5 Hispanics, 3 Asians
Parental age: 19-45 yrs old
Procedures
Parent-child speech,
videotaped & transcribed
Scheduled interview (within 5
days)

Research Questions

Article 1: Three
research questions.
1. The stability of
maternal social and
linguistic input over
time is considered.
2. The significance of
linguistic input on
child vocabulary
development is
investigated.
3. The relations of social
input with child
vocabulary use are
looked upon.

Article 2: Four research questions.

1.
The measurement of variables in
both the quantity and quality of the
child-directed speech that parents
offer to the toddlers.
2.
The measurement on child-directed
speech with toddlers were describe
to childrens preschool vocabulary
skill that refers to ability for the
toddler in controlling their
vocabulary skill.
3.
The relationship between SES in
disclose to child-directed speech
and the researcher-directed speech.
4.
The knowledge of the parent
towards child development and
arbitrate of parental verbal facility
in relation between SES and childdirected speech.

Findings
Article 1:
- The diversity of the
mothers
vocabulary in early
development can
lead to the
diversity of the
childs vocabulary
in toddlerhood.

Article 2:
- The affiliation of childdirected speech and
child vocabulary skill
and again discusses
concerned on the main
focused question of why
parents from different
SES backgrounds
communicate
differently with their
children.

Critiques
Weaknesses: both journals is the ambiguity in
giving information.
Article 1:
Difficulty in reading the numbers in
terms of age.
Difficult to understand the phrase
Pearson bivariate correlations which
was said to be the data analysis
method of this study.
One sentence which is Many of the
women in the sample group were
unmarried but most of the women
were living with the infants father at
the time they gave birth is
ambiguous.
It is not very reader-friendly when
the readers are directed to refer to
Bernstein and Hans (1994) concerning
the recruitment of participants and the
determination of social-environment
risk factors.

Article 2:
The crucial part of its main
concern has been repeated as it
was well presented in its typical
academic abstract.
The videotaped sessions were
truncated to the shortest taping.
More on descriptive rather than
informative analysis.

Reflections
We feel inspired by both study as it
has broken down the strong belief
that child learning should be
responsive and child-led.
Learning the differences in SES gives
impact to the developmental of a
child-directed speech.

References
1. MEREDITH L. ROWE (2008). Child-directed speech:
relation to socioeconomic status, knowledge of child
development and child vocabulary skill. Journal of Child
Language, 35, pp 185-205. Retrieved from http://
journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0305000907008343
2. Priya M. Shimpi (Mill College), Alicia Fedewa (University
of Kentucky), Sydney Hans (University of Chicago).
Social and Linguistic Input in Low-Income African
American mother-child dyads from 1 month through 2
years: Relations to vocabulary development.
Received: July 20, 2009, published on December 29,
2010.