Presenter(s): Madison Edgar
Faculty Mentor(s): Caitlin Fausey
Poster 106
Session: Social Sciences & Humanities
The auditory environments infants encounter impact their vocal development, especially during interactions between a caregiver and their infant (e.g., Franklin et al., 2014; Cartmill et al., 2013). We know that caregivers not only talk but also sing to their infants; however, we don’t yet know how singing might matter for many infant behaviors in everyday life (Custodero, Britto, & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). In this study, I ask: Does singing impact infant vocalizations in everyday life? We audio recorded one full day at home from 35 infants (ages 6-12 months old). Trained coders identified moments of live vocal music by listening to these recordings. Speech modeling software automatically identified infant vocalizations (Ford et al., 2008). Overall, infants encountered 6.5 minutes of live vocal music each day (Median = 6.52 , SD = 7.24) and vocalized 1165 times over the course of each day (Median = 1165, SD = 523.55). Interestingly, infants who encountered more live vocal music also vocalized more (r = .48, p < .01). These results raise the possibility that caregiver singing promotes vocalization practice for infants. We know that high quality auditory environments include lots of speech directed specifically at the child, which suggests that singing may also be high quality input. Thus, this study provides implications for future interventions for infants with lower quality auditory environments.