Cross-linguistic comparison of utterance shapes in Korean- and English-learning children: An ambient language effect

Vocal and early speech development in Korean-acquiring children with hearing loss and typical hearing

This study investigated the vocal and early speech development of Korean-acquiring children with hearing loss (HL) who underwent early auditory amplification compared to their typical hearing (TH) counterparts. The research focused on phonological characteristics of child vocalisation based on samples collected from naturalistic home environments. One-day home recordings using a Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) recorder were obtained from 6 children with HL and 12 children with TH who ranged from 17 to 23 months of age in Korean monolingual environments. Child volubility, canonical babbling ratio (CBR), consonant distributions, and utterance structures of vocalisations were evaluated through qualitative and quantitative analyses of vocalisation samples collected from LENA recordings. The findings revealed that children with HL displayed comparable vocalisation levels to children with TH, with no significant differences in volubility and CBR. In consonant and utterance shape inventories, noticeable quantitative and qualitative differences were observed between children with HL and those with TH. The study also suggested both universal and language-specific production patterns, revealing the early effects of ambient language on consonant distributions and utterance structures within their vocalisation repertoire. This study emphasised the role of auditory input and the importance of early auditory amplification to support speech development in children with HL.

The Predictability of Naturalistic Evaluation of All-Day Recordings for Speech and Language Development

OBJECTIVES

The study aimed to investigate the predictive potential of language environment and vocal development status measures obtained through integrated analysis of Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) recordings during the prelinguistic stage for subsequent speech and language development in Korean-acquiring children. Specifically, this study explored whether measures from both LENA-automated analysis and human coding at 6-8 months and 12-14 months of age predict vocabulary and phonological development at 18-20 months.

METHOD

One-day home recordings from 20 children were collected using a LENA recorder at 6-8 months, 12-14 months, and 18-20 months. Both LENA-automated measures and measures from human coding were obtained from recordings at 6-8 months and 12-14 months. The number of different words, consonant inventory, and utterance structure inventory were identified from recordings of 18-20 months. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were performed to investigate whether measures related to early language environment and child vocalization at 6-8 months and 12-14 months were predictive of vocabulary and phonological measures at 18-20 months.

RESULTS

The results showed that the two main LENA-automated measures, conversational turn count (CTC) and child vocalization count, were positively correlated with all vocabulary and phonological measures at 18-20 months. Multiple regression analysis revealed that CTC during the prelinguistic stages was the most significant predictor of a number of different words, consonant inventory, and utterance structure inventory at 18-20 months. Also, adult word count in LENA-automated measures, child-directed speech ratio, and canonical babbling ratio measured by human coding significantly predicted some vocabulary and phonological measures at 18-20 months.

CONCLUSION

This study highlights the multifaceted nature of language acquisition and collectively emphasizes the value of considering both quantitative and qualitative aspects of language input to understand early language development in children.

Parental verbal responsiveness to infant vocalizations from 9 to 14 months of age

Parental communication styles and language usage may undergo changes during the course of child development, exhibiting variations across language backgrounds and cultures. This study aimed to explore how infant-parent interactions within Korean-speaking environments evolve over time through meticulous coding of day-long home audio recordings. The study examined whether the ratio and types of parental verbal responses vary based on infants' age and vocalization types. A total of 16 infants and their parents participated in all-day home recordings using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system. The recordings were conducted in two rounds per family when the infants were aged 9-11 months and 12-14 months, with a three-month gap between each round. The frequency and types of infant vocalizations were analyzed and the contingency and types of parental verbal responsiveness were determined based on semantic and phonetic connection, as well as temporal appropriateness. The results showed that parents did not verbally respond to approximately 50 % of the infant vocalizations in the natural home environment. However, parents' lack of verbal responses decreased significantly, and their contingent responses increased significantly with infant age. Parents were also not selectively responsive to infants' canonical vocalizations over non-canonical vocalizations. Nevertheless, parents demonstrated a higher frequency of responses that were not only linguistically meaningful but also socially appropriate and contextually relevant to infants' vocalizations as infants developed, which may play a significant role in scaffolding speech and language development.

Learning how to learn from social feedback: The origins of early vocal development

Infants' prelinguistic vocalizations reliably organize vocal turn-taking with social partners, creating opportunities for learning to produce the sound patterns of the ambient language. This social feedback loop supporting early vocal learning is well-documented, but its developmental origins have yet to be addressed. When do infants learn that their non-cry vocalizations influence others? To test developmental changes in infant vocal learning, we assessed the vocalizations of 2- and 5-month-old infants in a still-face interaction with an unfamiliar adult. During the still-face, infants who have learned the social efficacy of vocalizing increase their babbling rate. In addition, to assess the expectations for social responsiveness that infants build from their everyday experience, we recorded caregiver responsiveness to their infants' vocalizations during unstructured play. During the still-face, only 5-month-old infants showed an increase in vocalizing (a vocal extinction burst) indicating that they had learned to expect adult responses to their vocalizations. Caregiver responsiveness predicted the magnitude of the vocal extinction burst for 5-month-olds. Because 5-month-olds show a vocal extinction burst with unfamiliar adults, they must have generalized the social efficacy of their vocalizations beyond their familiar caregiver. Caregiver responsiveness to infant vocalizations during unstructured play was similar for 2- and 5-month-olds. Infants thus learn the social efficacy of their vocalizations between 2 and 5 months of age. During this time, infants build associations between their own non-cry sounds and the reactions of adults, which allows learning of the instrumental value of vocalizing.

LANGUAGE EXPOSURE PREDICTS CHILDREN'S PHONETIC PATTERNING: EVIDENCE FROM LANGUAGE SHIFT

Although understanding the role of the environment is central to language acquisition theory, rarely has this been studied for children's phonetic development, and receptive and expressive language experiences in the environment are not distinguished. This last distinction may be crucial for child speech production in particular, because production requires coordination of low-level speech-motor planning with high-level linguistic knowledge. In this study, the role of the environment is evaluated in a novel way-by studying phonetic development in a bilingual community undergoing rapid language shift. This sociolinguistic context provides a naturalistic gradient of the amount of children's exposure to two languages and the ratio of expressive to receptive experiences. A large-scale child language corpus encompassing over 500 hours of naturalistic South Bolivian Quechua and Spanish speech was efficiently annotated for children's and their caregivers' bilingual language use. These estimates were correlated with children's patterns in a series of speech production tasks. The role of the environment varied by outcome: children's expressive language experience best predicted their performance on a coarticulation-morphology measure, while their receptive experience predicted performance on a lower-level measure of vowel variability. Overall these bilingual exposure effects suggest a pathway for children's role in language change whereby language shift can result in different learning outcomes within a single speech community. Appropriate ways to model language exposure in development are discussed.

Impact of Education 4.0 among engineering students for learning English language

Education 4.0 is considered a significant technology for teaching and learning. The present study aims to explore the impact and the importance of Education 4.0 for improving English language learning in the perception of students in India, especially Hyderabad City. Moreover, Education 4.0 has bloomed as an important need to move along with the fast-growing education system of the world. But, it is a fact that many Indian students have complications and difficulties in learning English due to many reasons. The traditional methods of teaching are one of those reasons. Students learn only through the conventional methods, and they may find it boring and not effective. The education and mode of teaching have changed a lot, and it has attained a newer form of using the technology. Moreover, in the current era, where work from home and online teaching has become a new normal throughout the world, the technology used for teaching is inseparable. Hence, the authors are motivated to study the impact of Education 4.0 on improving English learning from Hyderabad, India. The methodology of the study has applied quantitative research. The study has employed pre-tested, close-ended questionnaires and post-assessment to gather data from the respondents to understand students’ performance in English language learning after implying Education 4.0. The five-point Likert scale has been used to analyse the collected data and to get mean values of responses. The total number of respondents is 145 students who pursue their engineering degrees in the select region. Among the collected data, most of them were from urban. The data obtained from the respondents proved that there is a direct correlation between the students’ perception and implementation of Education 4.0 in learning the English language. This study indicated that the respondents upheld Education 4.0 to improve English language learning in Hyderabad, India.