Maternal Language During Play with Infants at High-Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder
by Sara Stahl
Faculty Advisor: Rebecca Neal-Beevers
The quality of mother-infant interactions (i.e. dyadic synchrony) influences child development. Language that mothers use with their children is also known to have an important influence on child development, including age of language acquisition. Language use has also been shown to reveal underlying psychological processes. For example, increased use of first-person pronouns in written and spoken language among adults has been linked with depression. Mothers of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder often report higher distress than mothers of typically developing children. Greater maternal distress could be associated with maternal language patterns that influence dyadic synchrony during mother-infant interactions. However, this relationship has not yet been investigated. Therefore, the goal of this study is to compare speech patterns of mothers experiencing varying levels of maternal distress who have infants at high-risk or low-risk for developing autism in order to examine the influence of maternal language on dyadic synchrony. Using the Language Inquiry and Word Count, this study will analyze maternal verbal utterances used during 15-minute mother-infant free-play sessions.