Maternal input to infants and toddlers after an early hospitalization: a longitudinal study

ABSTRACT

Maternal input addressed to children after an early hospitalization (EH) was longitudinally compared to maternal input directed to typically developing children (TD), at 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 months of age. The data were analyzed with the CHILDES tools for (a) word-tokens (b) word-types (c) Mean Length of Utterances (MLU) and (d) questions in which the mothers request a response or a turn. Nonsignificant differences between groups were found. Only questions were significantly higher for EH mothers than for TD mothers across the five sessions. Lexical Correspondence Analysis (LCA) on these two datasets show qualitative differences between the two groups. Depression and anxiety at 12 months and children attachment behaviour assessed at 18 months do not play a role from EH mothers. These findings suggest that EH mothers have a specific conversational style encouraging their infants and toddlers to request salient information or to perform an action.

KEYWORDS:

• Childcare
• maternal input
• follow-up
• prevention
• early hospitalization

Acknowledgments

This work received funding from EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space) and Bettencourt Schueller foundations. We should like to gratefully acknowledge Aurore Poutier and C. Caron for video annotations, and the technicians involved in the PILE project: Xavier Jeudon, Alain Casanova, Johan Boulanger, Gwenael Mulsant, Nicolas Perinetti.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by EADS (European Aeronautic Defence and Space) and Bettencourt Schueller foundations.

Notes on contributors

Marluce Leitgel-Gille

Dr Marluce Leitgel-Gille, PHD in psychology, is working as a clinical psychologist at Necker Hospital for sick children, Paris, France. Her research mainly focuses on the prosodic aspects of the Infant directed speech (IDS). This research is carried out within the PILE Program (International Program for Child Language) under the supervision of Professor Bernard Golse and Dr Lisa Ouss.

Marie-Thérèse Le Normand

Dr Marie-Thérèse Le Normand, PHD in Cognitive Linguistics, director Emeritus at French Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) currently works at the laboratory of Psychopathology and Health at the University of Paris. She does research in Developmental Cognitive Psycholinguistics and Clinical Neuropsychology using spoken corpora analyses, behavioral experiments and neuroimaging.

Caroline Caron

Caroline Caron is a Speech Language Pathologist working as a private practice with infants, toddlers and school aged children. She was involved in Pile Program(International Program for Child Language) as a master student to carry out the research on maternal input in infants and toddlers after an early hospitalization.

Chantal Clouard

Dr Chantal Clouard, PHD in psychology is working on several domains of cognitive neuropsychology, speech and language at Necker Hospital for sick children, Paris, France. This Language Research team within the Pile program is involved in developmental psycholinguistic research.

Christelle Gosme

Dr Christelle Gosme, PHD in psychology is currently working at Necker Hospital for sick children. As part of the PILE program, she conducted a prospective and longitudinal follow-up study on mother-child attachment when the mother has a visual impairment. Her study was conducted over a period of four years. Her results of the effects of maternal visual deficiency on early interactions show the need to support these mothers to create attachment with their children.

Bernard Golse

Dr Bernard Golse, Professor Emeritus of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at University of Paris, president of the European Association of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology (AEPEA). He was the principal investigator of the research program ' PILE ' (International Program for Child Language) at Necker Hospital for sick children. This multidisciplinary program aims to renew the conceptions of early development of language and infant care.

Lisa Ouss

Dr Lisa Ouss, Associate Professor in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Necker Hospital for sick children, Paris, France, has a double training (MD and PHD in psychology). She is currently the leader of the PILE program (International Program for Child Language). This program emphasizes the need for early detection and their relevance as markers of later development of language in five cohorts of at-risk infants (i) West syndrome, (ii) preterm birth, (iii) orality disorder, (iv) visually impaired mothers, and (v) early hospitalization.