De ontwikkeling van voorkeur voor kindgerichte spraak bij jonge baby’s

Abstract

It is a well-established finding that babies generally prefer Infant Directed Speech (IDS) over Adult Directed Speech (ADS). The main question in this research was whether babies (aged six to twelve months) have a preference for IDS over ADS when listening to a non-native language. A secondary question was whether this effect was further modulated by age and gender. In this research 64 Dutch babies (aged six to twelve months) participated in an experiment in which the Headturn Preference Procedure (HPP) was used. In this experiment the average looking time of the babies was measured for both IDS and ADS stimuli. The babies were exposed to stimuli in the American-English language. No significant effect was found for preference for IDS over ADS. Furthermore, no significant effects were found for age and sex. Notable is that the only significant effect that was found is a decrease in average looking time during the experiment. This research makes it clear that more research is needed on the subject of preference for IDS over ADS. Follow-up research should concentrate on a similar study in which the babies are exposed to stimuli in their native language.