A study of multimodal motherese: The role of temporal synchrony between verbal labels and gestures

This study examined European American and Hispanic American mothers' multim odal communication to their infants (N = 24). The infants were from three a ge groups representing three levels of lexical-mapping development: prelexi cal (5 to 8 months), early-lexical (9 to 17 months), and advanced-lexical ( 21 to 30 months). Mothers taught their infants four target (novel) words by using distinct objects during a semistructured play episode. Recent resear ch suggests that young infants rely on temporal synchrony to learn syllable -object relations, but later, the role of synchrony diminishes. Thus, mothe rs' target and nontarget naming were coded for synchrony and other communic ation styles. The results indicated that mothers used target words more oft en than nontarget words in synchrony with object motion and sometimes touch . Thus, "multimodal motherese" likely highlights target word-referent relat ions for infants. Further, mothers tailored their communication to infants' level of lexical-mapping development. Mothers of prelexical infants used t arget words in synchrony with object motion more often than mothers of earl y- and advanced-lexical infants. Mothers' decreasing use of synchrony acros s age parallels infants' decreasing reliance on synchrony, suggesting a dyn amical and reciprocal environment-organismic relation.