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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Symbolic play provides a fertile context for language development
Noëlie Creaghe1,2, Sara Quinn1, Evan Kidd1,2,3,4
1Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
Abstract:
In this study, we test the hypothesis that symbolic play represents a fertile context for language acquisition because its inherent ambiguity elicits communicative behaviors that positively influence development. Infant-caregiver dyads (N = 54) participated in two 20-minute play sessions six months apart (Time 1 = 18 months, Time 2 = 24 months). During each session, the dyads played with two sets of toys that elicited either symbolic or functional play. The sessions were transcribed and coded for several features of dyadic interaction and language; infants' linguistic proficiency was measured via parental report. The two contexts elicited different communicative and linguistic behaviors. Notably, the symbolic play condition resulted in significantly greater conversational turn-taking than functional play, and also resulted in the greater use of questions and mimetics in infant-directed speech (IDS). In contrast, caregivers used more imperative clauses in functional play. Correlational and regression analyses showed that frequent properties of symbolic play (i.e., turn-taking, yes-no questions, mimetics) were positively related to infants' language proficiency, whereas frequent features of functional play (i.e., imperatives in IDS) were negatively related. The results provide evidence supporting the hypothesis that symbolic play is a fertile context for language development, driven by the need to negotiate meaning.
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