Objectively measured teacher and preschooler vocalizations: Phonemic diversity is associated with language abilities.

ABSTRACT: Over half of US children are enrolled in preschools, where the quantity and quality of language input from teachers are likely to affect children's language development. Leveraging repeated objective measurements, we examined the rate per minute and phonemic diversity of child and teacher speech-related vocalizations in preschool classrooms and their association with children's end-of-year receptive and expressive language abilities measured with the Preschool Language Scales (PLS-5). Phonemic diversity was computed as the number of unique consonants and vowels in a speech-related vocalization. We observed three successive cohorts of 2.5-3.5-year-old children enrolled in an oral language classroom that included children with and without hearing loss (N = 29, 16 girls, 14 Hispanic). Vocaliz

SUBMITTER: Mitsven SG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8847312 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature