Developmental cascades of vocal turn-taking connect prelinguistic vocalizing with early language

Conversational turn-taking is ubiquitously found in caregiver-infant interactions, and robustly predictive of infant communicative development. Over the first year, infants take quick adult-like vocal turns with caregivers. Many studies have documented the consistency of caregiver responsiveness and its influence on infant rapid language growth. However, few have examined how caregiver responsiveness facilitates extended vocal turn-taking in real-time with infants over the first year. The influence of prelinguistic vocal turn-taking on the emergence of language has also been under-investigated. We analyzed free-play sessions of 30 caregivers and their infants at both 5 and 10 months, and obtained infant language outcomes at 18 months. We examined the developmental consistency (group-level continuity and dyad-order stability) and change of infant volubility, caregiver responses to babbling in vocal, non-vocal and multimodal modalities, and the influence of modality on caregiver-infant vocal turn-taking. Caregiver contingent responsiveness to infant babbling at 5 months predicted vocal turn-taking at 10 months. Developmental increases in prelinguistic vocalizing and vocal turn-taking from 5 to 10 months predicted infant language outcomes at 18 months. At both 5 and 10 months, caregiver vocal responses were more effective in extending turn-taking than non-vocal or multimodal responses. In summary, prelinguistic vocal turn-taking, facilitated by caregiver vocal responsiveness, is positively related to the emergence of early language.