This
study investigated the quantity of audible and intelligible (‘near and
clear’) educator talk directly experienced by under-two-year-old infants
attending early childhood education and care (ECEC) programmes and examined
whether the quantity of educator talk was related to characteristics of
quality in their ECEC room. Participants were 57 infants attending separate
infant rooms in and around the Sydney metropolitan area, Australia. Each
infant was observed for 3 h, wearing a small, custom-designed digital
language processor (DLP) which digitally recorded and generated measures of
‘near and clear’ adult talk, unclear talk and infant vocalisations.
Structural quality indicators include educator qualification, group size and
educator-infant ratios, and Interaction Quality was assessed using the
ITERS-R Interaction and Listening and Talking subscales. Infants’ experience
with ‘near and clear’ talk was predicted by Interaction Quality, the presence
of a degree-qualified teacher and group size. ‘Near and clear’ talk was also
significantly and positively related to the quantity of infant vocalisation
and, negatively, to their level of exposure to unclear talk. Findings are
discussed in terms of conceptualisations of quality in infant ECEC rooms, as
well as the potentials and limitations of the ‘near and clear’ talk measure
for use in future studies of language development in this context.
