King, Querdasi, Humphreys, Gotlib
The
quality of the early environment influences the development of
psychopathology. Children who are deprived of sufficient environmental
enrichment in infancy may be at higher risk for developing symptoms of
psychopathology in toddlerhood. In this study, we investigated the
prospective association between naturalistic measures of adult language input
obtained through passive monitoring of infants’ daily environments and
emerging psychopathology in toddlerhood. In a sample of 100 mothers and their
infants recruited from the community (mean age [range] = 6.73 [5–9] months),
we used the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) system to measure multiple
dimensions of infants’ language environments, including both the quantity and
consistency of adult speech and conversational turns in infants’ daily lives
as well as the quantity of infant vocalizations. Subsequently, during
toddlerhood (mean age [range] = 18.29 [17–21] months), mothers reported on
their children’s symptoms of psychopathology. Infants who experienced more
consistent adult speech and conversational turns had lower symptoms of
psychopathology in toddlerhood, independent of negative emotionality in
infancy, maternal depressive symptoms, and laboratory-based measures of
maternal sensitivity. These findings have implications for the measurement of
environmental factors that may confer risk and resilience to emerging
psychopathology.
