Marta Casla

The After School Routines of Literature-Devoted Urban Children

Abstract This paper discusses the out of school routines of a group of ‘literature-devoted’ children of the city of Madrid (Spain). The children and families were recruited for the study at a library, a childrens bookstore and a puppet show in a park. Participants provided information on their weekly routines through several procedures: surveys, photographs of their daily lives, interviews based on the photographs and interviews with parents. We develop a spatially based model that allows us to identify four styles of activity in childrens out of school lives: homebound children, non-scheduled children, outdoor and scheduled children, and fully scheduled children. Our results suggest that there is significant diversity in the ways in which childrens after-school time is organized, even within a middle-class and socially homogeneous sample as the one in this study. Also, the range of activities our participants engage in seems to contradict current portraits of Western urban childrens lives as constrained.

Los métodos basados en la duración de la mirada: ¿una ventana a la cognición temprana?

Resumen Los métodos experimentales para estudiar el desarrollo temprano han dominado la investigación en desarrollo cognitivo temprano durante las últimas décadas. La mayoría de las investigaciones se han llevado a cabo en laboratorios infantiles que utilizan la mirada de los bebés y niños pequeños como variable dependiente. Estos métodos han permitido acceder a información sobre capacidades cognitivas tempranas que anteriormente era impensable. En este trabajo revisamos, con una mirada crítica, las investigaciones que han utilizado dos métodos paradigmáticos: la habituación (en la variante llamada “violación de expectativas”) y la preferencia visual intermodal. Ambos permiten, respectivamente, valorar los avances realizados en la investigación sobre capacidades perceptivas y representacionales, y desarrollo lingüístico. Discutimos aspectos metodológicos como la elección del diseño y las medidas de las variables dependientes. Asimismo, se revisan las interpretaciones de los datos procedentes de estas investigaciones y la difusión que han tenido para promover una visión determinada del desarrollo temprano.

Gesture and speech combinations beyond two-word stage in an experimental task

Gestures and speech combinations have a crucial role on early lexical and syntactic development. Nonetheless, little is known about the role of these combinations on language learning beyond the two-word stage. Our aim is to explore how children combine gestures and speech when they start to master syntactic rules. Thirty Spanish children (aged 24–35 months) participated in a task with a “find the odd one” game structure. The complexity of the target picture increased in terms of the relationships between the elements depicted in each image. Children coordinate gestures and words preferably as their main communicative resource, regardless the complexity of the message to convey or their linguistic development. They distribute the semantic load between speech and gesture depending on message complexity. Among all types of gesture–speech combinations produced, reinforcing combinations were related to lexical and syntactic development, and supplementary combinations were related to lexical development.

Changes in the Synchrony of Multimodal Communication in Early Language Development

Purpose The aim of this study is to analyze the changes in temporal synchrony between gesture and speech of multimodal communicative behaviors in the transition from babbling to two-word productions. Method Ten Spanish-speaking children were observed at 9, 12, 15, and 18 months of age in a semistructured play situation. We longitudinally analyzed the synchrony between gestures and vocal productions and between their prominent parts. We also explored the relationship between gestural-vocal synchrony and independent measures of language development. Results Results showed that multimodal communicative behaviors tend to be shorter with age, with an increasing overlap of its constituting elements. The same pattern is found when considering the synchrony between the prominent parts. The proportion of overlap between gestural and vocal elements at 15 months of age as well as the proportion of the stroke overlapped with vocalization appear to be related to lexical development 3 months later. Conclusions These results suggest that children produce gestures and vocalizations as coordinated elements of a single communication system before the transition to the two-word stage. This coordination is related to subsequent lexical development in this period. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.6912242.

Word and Nonword Repetition Abilities in Spanish Language: Longitudinal Evidence from Typically Developing and Late Talking Children

This longitudinal study examined the early word and nonword repetition abilities of monolingual Spanish speaking children. We explored the role that word status, word length, and time play in repetition performance of children with different vocabulary levels. We also examined the predictive value of vocabulary level in repetition abilities. Thirty-seven children participated in this study: 15 late talkers and 22 typically developing children. Families completed the Spanish version of the MacArthur Communicative Developmental Inventory (MCDI) at age 2; children performed a word and nonword repetition task at three different moments, with a temporal interval of 6 months between Time 1 and Time 2, and eight months between Time 2 and Time 3, periods during which linguistic development takes place. We found significant effects for word status, word length, vocabulary level and time: words are repeated better than nonwords; one syllable items are easier to repeat than two and three syllable ones; the performance of late talking children is lower compared to typically developing children throughout the study; and repetition abilities improve longitudinally. In addition, early vocabulary level predicts subsequent repetition abilities and early nonword repetition abilities predict future nonword repetition performance.

Los primeros usos de las formas de referencia personal en español : análisis de las relaciones forma-función

Resumen El propósito de este trabajo es el estudio de los usos tempranos de las formas lingüísticas que permiten designar personas (hablante, oyente y otros). Se analizaron sesiones mensuales de interacción adulto-niño en contextos naturales. Las producciones lingüísticas de tres niños se analizan (rango de edad 1;4-3;0). Dos cuestiones principales guiaron los análisis: (1) el uso que los niños hacen de las formas lingüísticas disponibles en la lengua española para referirse a las personas y (2) las funciones comunicativas de esas formas. Los resultados muestran un uso temprano de distintas formas, aunque existen diferencias en a) la frecuencia con que cada niño se refiere a sí mismo, b) las formas que utiliza cada niño para referirse al mismo participante y c) el propósito comunicativo de cada forma. Estos resultados son consistentes con estudios anteriores que señalan la existencia de rutas individuales en la adquisición de la gramática. La importancia del estudio de las relaciones forma-función también se discute.