RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Social and endogenous motivations in the emergence of canonical babbling: An autism risk study
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.10.09.333872
DO 10.1101/2020.10.09.333872
A1 Helen L. Long
A1 Gordon Ramsay
A1 Dale D. Bowman
A1 Megan M. Burkhardt-Reed
A1 D. Kimbrough Oller
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/10/12/2020.10.09.333872.abstract
AB There is a growing body of research emphasizing the role of intrinsic motivation and endogenous activity to support the development of cognitive systems alongside the well-established role of social interaction. The present study longitudinally evaluated canonical babbling across the second-half year of life, when canonical babbling becomes well-established. We compared segments rated as having high and low levels of turn taking and independent vocal play in 98 children at low and high risk for autism spectrum disorder. Segments were extracted from all-day home audio recordings to observe infants in naturalistic settings. Canonical babbling ratios (CBR) were determined based on human coding along with Likert-scale ratings on the level of turn taking and vocal play in each segment. We observed highly significant differences in CBRs between risk groups during high and low vocal play, but high and low levels of turn taking yielded a weaker effect. There were also interactions of CBR with age, risk, and vocal function variables. We conclude that social and endogenous/exploratory motivations may drive both high- and low-risk infant tendencies to produce their most speech-like vocalizations.Lay abstract Infants at low and high risk for autism produced similar babbling rates across various levels of social interaction. Infants at high risk for autism produced higher rates of mature, well-formed (canonical) syllables during bouts of independent vocal play. In this study, we compared rates of babbling in infants at low and high risk for autism across different levels of infant vocal turn taking and vocal play. Eight 5-minute segments were selected from each all-day home recording (98 infants, 483 recordings in the second half-year of life). Listeners coded infant syllables as canonical, i.e., “adult-like,” or noncanonical, i.e., “immature,” forms. After coding each segment, listeners rated each segment for its frequency of both infant turn taking and vocal play using a Likert scale. We predicted that low-risk infants would do more canonical babbling during social interaction and high-risk infants would babble more during independent vocal play. But infants at high risk for autism did not differ significantly in babbling rates across levels of social interaction from low-risk infants. Also contrary to our prediction both groups produced higher rates of canonical babbling during periods of high vocal play. Both groups produced similar canonical babbling rates over time. These findings may inform our understanding of internal motivations for canonical babbling and potentially early indicators of differences in the vocal production of infants with autism before they produce their first words.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.