From early in life, infants show a preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS), and exposure to IDS has been correlated with different language outcome measures such as vocabulary. The present multi-laboratory study explores this issue by investigating whether there is a link between early preference for IDS and later vocabulary size. Infants’ preference for IDS was tested as part of the ManyBabies1 project, and follow-up CDI data were collected from a subsample of this dataset at 18 and 24 months. A total of 341 (18 months) and 327 (24 months) infants were tested across 21 laboratories. In neither preregistered analyses with North American and UK English, nor exploratory analyses with a larger sample did we find evidence for a relation between IDS preference and later vocabulary (Bayes Factor analysis was inconclusive). We discuss the implications of this finding in light of recent work suggesting that IDS preference measured in the laboratory has low test-retest reliability.
Soderstrom M, Rocha-Hidalgo J, Munoz LE, Bochynska A, Werker JF, Skarabela B, Seidl A, Searle A, Ryjova Y, Rennels JL, Potter C, Paulus M, Ota M, Noble C, Nave C, Mayor J, Martin A, Machon LC, Lew-Williams C, Ko ES, Kim H, Kartushina N, Kammermeier M, Jessop A, Hay JF, Hannon EE, Hamlin JK, Havron N, Gonzalez-Gomez N, Gonzalez-Barrero AM, Gampe A, Fritzsche T, Frank MC, Floccia C, Durrant S, Delle Luche C, Davies C, Cashon C, Byers-Heinlein K, Black AK, Bergmann C, Anderson L, AlShakhori MK, Al-Hoorie AH, & Sin Mei Tsui Az
Department of Psychology, Health and Professional Development
Year of publication: Not yet publishedDate of RADAR deposit: 2024-07-04