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Proposal

Extant literature documents a higher rate of language/speech disorders in males; however, despite sex being a potential moderator of outcomes, we do not know what role it plays in early vocal behavior of infants at high risk for such disorders. The purpose of this study was to ask: (1) Do high-risk infants demonstrate atypical vocal development patterns? (2) Is the quality and quantity of early babble distinct for male and female infants, and does this pattern vary across risk? To answer these questions, we examined the canonical babbling ratio (CBR; the ratio of canonical syllables, those with a consonant and vowel, like “ba,” to all babbled syllables) and number of babbled syllables in data collected from 89 high-and low-risk 6-to 18-month- olds. The infants were divided into four groups: infants with Angelman, Down, and fragile X syndromes, and infants at low risk for speech and language disorders. Each participant was recorded for one day using a digital recorder. After recording, speech produced by the infant was extracted and annotated by 3 trained undergraduate coders for the number of canonical and other syllables produced. We ran ANOVAs to explore group and sex differences, which revealed a main effect of risk group, but no main effects or interactions of sex with our dependent variables (number of syllables, CBR). Thus, results revealed group differences, but not effects of sex, suggesting that sex does not relate to risk in vocal production, which could contribute to improved early diagnosis of speech and language disorders.

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