Infants’ behaviours elicit different verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses from caregivers during early play

Anika van der Klis; Frans Adriaans; René Kager

doi:10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101828

Infants’ behaviours elicit different verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses from caregivers during early play

Anika van der Klis, Frans Adriaans, René Kager

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Caregivers use a range of verbal and nonverbal behaviours when responding to their infants. Previous studies have typically focused on the role of the caregiver in providing verbal responses, while communication is inherently multimodal (involving audio and visual information) and bidirectional (exchange of information between infant and caregiver). In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of caregivers’ verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses to 10-month-old infants’ vocalisations and gestures during free play. A new coding scheme was used to annotate 2036 infant vocalisations and gestures of which 87.1 % received a caregiver response. Most caregiver responses were verbal, but 39.7 % of all responses were multimodal. We also examined whether different infant behaviours elicited different responses from caregivers. Infant bimodal (i.e., vocal-gestural combination) behaviours elicited high rates of verbal responses and high rates of multimodal responses, while infant gestures elicited high rates of nonverbal responses. We also found that the types of verbal and nonverbal responses differed as a function of infant behaviour. The results indicate that infants influence the rates and types of responses they receive from caregivers. When examining caregiver-child interactions, analysing caregivers’ verbal responses alone undermines the multimodal richness and bidirectionality of early communication.

Original language	English
Article number	101828
Journal	Infant Behavior and Development
Volume	71
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101828
Publication status	Published - 1 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

Funding

We would like to thank Joyce van Zwet for her help with data annotation. We are also grateful to all families who participate in the YOUth study. YOUth is funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO grant number 024.001.003). A complete listing of the study investigators and study management can be found at https://www.uu.nl/en/research/youth-cohort-study/about-us/who-is involved. YOUth investigators and management designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in the analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the YOUth study investigators or YOUth management. We would like to thank Joyce van Zwet for her help with data annotation. We are also grateful to all families who participate in the YOUth study. YOUth is funded through the Gravitation program of the Dutch Ministry of Education , Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research ( NWO grant number 024.001.003 ). A complete listing of the study investigators and study management can be found at https://www.uu.nl/en/research/youth-cohort-study/about-us/who- is involved. YOUth investigators and management designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in the analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the YOUth study investigators or YOUth management.

Funders	Funder number
Dutch Ministry of Education , Culture, and Science
Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	024.001.003

Keywords

Caregiver-child interactions
Free play
Infancy
Multimodal language
Responsiveness
YOUth Cohort Study

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10.1016/j.infbeh.2023.101828Licence: CC BY

1-s2.0-S0163638323000206-mainFinal published version, 1.84 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "Caregivers use a range of verbal and nonverbal behaviours when responding to their infants. Previous studies have typically focused on the role of the caregiver in providing verbal responses, while communication is inherently multimodal (involving audio and visual information) and bidirectional (exchange of information between infant and caregiver). In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of caregivers{\textquoteright} verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses to 10-month-old infants{\textquoteright} vocalisations and gestures during free play. A new coding scheme was used to annotate 2036 infant vocalisations and gestures of which 87.1 % received a caregiver response. Most caregiver responses were verbal, but 39.7 % of all responses were multimodal. We also examined whether different infant behaviours elicited different responses from caregivers. Infant bimodal (i.e., vocal-gestural combination) behaviours elicited high rates of verbal responses and high rates of multimodal responses, while infant gestures elicited high rates of nonverbal responses. We also found that the types of verbal and nonverbal responses differed as a function of infant behaviour. The results indicate that infants influence the rates and types of responses they receive from caregivers. When examining caregiver-child interactions, analysing caregivers{\textquoteright} verbal responses alone undermines the multimodal richness and bidirectionality of early communication.",

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Infants’ behaviours elicit different verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal responses from caregivers during early play

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

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