title: A comparison of maternal and child intonation: does adult input support child production?
abstract: Intonation involves the musical aspects of speech production and consists of suprasegmental aspects of phonology (i.e., pitch, length and loudness). The development of intonation involves various changes throughout the first 2 years of life as children learn how to manipulate intonation features as their linguistic system develops. Evidence from the literature provides a mixed message related to the influence of surrounding adult models on intonation production. The current study observed intonation characteristics in 23 mother-child pairs. Results indicated that, in general, children did not directly imitate maternal intonation, but that maternal support assisted the production of wider contours.
authors.affiliation: Wayne State University, 207 Rackham, 60 Farnsworth, Detroit, MI 48202, USA. hbalog@wayne.edu
authors.forename: Heather L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Balog
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002663:Child Language; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010988:Play and Playthings; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D013060:Speech; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement