Download Motherese/Fatherese "Food for Baby`s Thought"

Author: Dr. Susan Easterbrooks
Georgia State University
Date submitted to deafed.net – March 24, 2006
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PowerPoint, please e-mail: [email protected]
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Georgia State University
Series:
Motherese/Fatherese
“Food For Baby’s Thought”
Part 2, Presentation 5
July 2001
Motherese/Fatherese:
Food for Baby’s
Thought
What is Motherese?
The natural way that a
parent communicates with a
baby or young child.
The interactions between a
mother and infant or child will
differ depending on the hearing
status of both the parent and
the child.
The dyads:
 A hearing parent and a hearing child
 A deaf parent and a deaf child
 A hearing parent and a deaf child
The Hearing Parent and a
Hearing Child
Hearing mothers of hearing children:
 Raise the pitch of their voice.
 Exaggerate their intonation.
 Use simple language with short, repetitive
words.
 Speak more slowly.
Hearing mothers, con’t
 Use parallel talk.
 Repeat what the child says.
 Pause between words.
 Use many comments or commands.
The Deaf Parent and the
Deaf Child
Deaf mothers of deaf children:
 Respond intuitively to their child’s
affective needs.
 cuddle their baby
 use touch to console or comfort the child,
and respond to the child’s needs.
 Use strategies to support the learning
of a visual language.
 sign near an object with which the child is
playing
 wave a hand to draw the child’s attention
towards them.
Deaf mothers, con’t
 Use exaggerated facial expressions when
communicating with their baby.
 Communicate visually.
 they use visual motherese to facilitate language
growth.
 Use modifications to hold and maintain
attention span, allowing for greater time to
process language input.
 sit and wait for their infants to look at them
before beginning to sign
 talk about something before directing the child to
look at it
Deaf mothers, con’t
 Modify their signs.
 use signs that are larger, slower, and have more
exaggerated movements
 signs have strong rhythmicality with frequent
repetitions
 Sign in a fluent, rich manner.
 communication occurs naturally and results in
frequent interactions
Hearing Mother/Deaf Child
Dyad
For Hearing Mothers
Communication is Challenging
Hearing mothers are unsure about
communicating with their deaf child.
They are extremely anxious and often
continue to speak to the child as if it
could hear.
They use intuitive parenting based on
what they know about hearing
children.
After age three, hearing mothers’
communication attempts tend to
decrease.
Challenges Continued
Hearing mothers use inconsistent
accommodations for their baby’s visual
needs.
Their attempts to communicate are
brief and contain few signs.
Although early use of natural gestures
were limited, hearing mothers do
increase their use of gestures as their
children get older.
Challenges Continued
Hearing mothers tend to be more
dominant in their interactions.
More utterances functioned to control
or to direct behavior.
They appeared to be didactic and
intrusive.
They were less likely to use expansion
or to give verbal praise.
The Hearing Parent and the
Deaf Child:
Habits to change
Hearing mothers of deaf children
have a tendency to:
 use insufficient visual accommodations
for language to develop.
Hearing mothers, con’t
 When attempting to sign, use few
facial expressions with their baby.
 This is one of the most crucial
elements of visual communication.
 Use speech predominately to
communicate with their infant
regardless of the communication
approach chosen.
Hearing mothers, con’t
 Simplify their speech and use simple patterns
of syntax.
 Use less prosodic (sing-song) and intonational
changes to their speech.
 Sign in a stilted, impoverished manner.
 They often make errors and experience
communication breakdowns resulting in
fewer interactions.
 Because the infant cannot hear the
mother’s voice, attention is most often on an
object or event instead of what is being
communicated.
This lack of communication disrupts the
child’s development.
Linguistic Impoverishment
Hearing mother/deaf child dyads
result in a linguistic mismatch
between the mother and child.
Lack of a shared communication
system results in deficient
interactions.
Deficient interactions contribute to
language delay.
Learning Sign Language
Most hearing mothers have not been
taught ASL. When mothers begin
signing they tend to use a signed
English system, speaking and signing at
the same time.
They sign in a stilted, impoverished
manner lacking the naturalness of deaf
mothers.
They often misarticulate signs and omit
grammatical morphemes.
It appears that hearing adults, both
parents and teachers, face a
tremendous challenge in trying to
unlearn habitual communication patterns
and to replace them with patterns more
appropriate to the visual mode.
The American Society for
Deaf Children
http://www.deafchildren.org/ is an
organization for parents of children
who are deaf or hard of hearing. ASDC
provides support to hearing parents
facing the challenge of educating a deaf
child. ASDC supports the use of sign
language and maintains a positive view
of Deaf culture.
You can do it!
The whole
family
must be
committed
to working
together.
Glossary of Professional Terms
Frequently Used
Affective Tone: The emotional tone of the parent and overall mood of
communication exchanges.
Auditory: The sense of hearing.
Communication: The active process individuals use to exchange
information, ideas, needs and desires with and to one another.
Deictic Gaze: The infant’s gaze is directed at objects.
Echoing: Repeating what the child says.
Entrainment: Small, synchronous movements an infant makes in response
to the adults speech at the phoneme, syllable, phrase, and sentence
levels.
Glossary, con’t
Expansion: To restate what a child has said in a more linguistically
correct way.
Expatiation: Expanding on a word a child says by offering more
information.
Gesture: Nonverbal form of communication (i.e. pointing).
Intonation: The linguistic use of pitch.
Imitation: An infant matches or repeats what an adult or other
person does.
Joint Action: Routine actions shared between the adult and
infant.
Joint Attention/Reference: When two or more participants share
a common focus on one thing.
Glossary, con’t
Kinesthetic: An awareness of one’s body as it moves through
space.
Labeling: Attaching a name to an object.
Language: A socially shared code or conventional system for
representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols and
rule-governed combinations of those symbols.
Linguists: Specialists who work to determine the language rules
that individual people use to communicate.
Motherese/Fatherese/Parentese: The natural tendency of a
parent or caregiver to modify their communication skills to
convey meaning to a child.
Glossary, con’t
Modeling: A natural strategy that takes place during
motherese/parentese. Providing a correct example for the
infant to imitate and follow.
Mutual Gaze: When the parent or caregiver and child are looking
at one another.
Nonlinguistic Cues: Gestures, body posture, facial expression, eye
contact, head and body movement, and proxemics used while
communicating.
Overarticulating: Stretching out sounds in words to be more
precise.
Parallel Talk: Describing a child’s actions while he or she is doing
them.
Pitch: The variation in ones vocal sound (i.e. low to high).
Glossary, con’t
Prosody: The natural rise and fall of pitch during conversation.
Proxemics: The physical distance between communicative partners
(i.e. between the adult and infant) used in communication.
Rate: The speed at which one uses language in communicating.
Recasting: To phrase a sentence in various ways.
Reinforcement: Anything that increases a behavior.
Referencing: Noting the presence of a single object, action, or
event for one’s communication partner.
Responsitivity: The adult’s tendency to recognize an infant’s
signal and meet that signal with an appropriate and consistent
response.
Glossary, con’t
Stress: The emphasis placed on speech by varying ones pitch or
sound of voice.
Suprasegmentals: Stress, rate, pause, and intonation used to
signal attitude or emotion in speech.
Tactile: Perception achieved through the sense of touch.
Turn Taking: Turn taking is taught through game playing routines.
Visual: Anything that can be seen.
Resources
Easterbrooks, S. R. & Baker, S. (2002). Language Learning in Children Who
Are Deaf and Hard of Hearing: Multiple Pathways. Boston, MA. Allyn
and Bacon in Press, Ch 2.
Owens, R, Jr. (1996.) Language Development/ an Introduction. 4th ed.
Needham
Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Snow, C. & Kuhl, P. (2000). Motherese – parentese or strategies we employ
to facilitate language learning. Auditory Verbal Training – WorkshopsConsultants – Mentoring. [Online], pp.1- 3.
Available:http://www.auditoryverbaltraining.com/motherese.htm.
http://rampages.onramp.net/~world/bletter3.html