The use of reported speech in children's narratives: a priming study

This study investigated the long-term effects of structural priming on children’s use of indirect speech clauses in a narrative context. Forty-two monolingual English-speaking five-year-olds in two primary classrooms took part in a story re-telling task including reported speech. Testing took place in three individual sessions (pre-test, post-test1, post-test2) and the priming phase was conducted in 10 group priming sessions. During the priming phase the two classrooms were randomly allocated to one of two conditions where, over the course of two weeks, the children heard 10 different stories that included 30 tokens of either indirect or direct speech. In the pre-test session we collected measures of receptive vocabulary (BPVS-3) and expressive grammar (Formulated Sentences sub-test, CELF4-UK). There was a significant effect of input manipulation that was maintained for up to ten weeks after the training. Expressive grammatical skills were positively correlated with the likelihood of using indirect speech one week after the end of the language intervention

Testing the Relationship Between Preferences for Infant-Directed Speech and Vocabulary Development: A Multi-Lab Study

From early on, infants show a preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS), and exposure to IDS has been correlated with 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 ManyBabies 1 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. We discuss implications of this finding in light of recent work suggesting that IDS preference measured in the laboratory has low test-retest reliability

Testing the Relationship Between Preferences for Infant-Directed Speech and Vocabulary Development: A Multi-Lab Study

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